


N'oubliez pas

by Nightfoot



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, F/M, French Revolution, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7877155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfoot/pseuds/Nightfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>French Revolution AU. During the Reign of Terror, Flynn was arrested for helping the runaway princess, Estelle. His friends are determined to rescue him from prison, but the Flynn they get back isn't the same as the one they lost. Estelle is certain the man she loves is still in there; they just have to help him remember who he was before his life fell apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time in France

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tales Big Bang! Writing this was so much fun. Be warned that it does contain torture and ptsd, so please read with caution.

**_N'oubliez pas_ **

_Don’t forget_

 

**7 February, 1794**

Yuri held his breath when the blade dropped. Though he watched from across a crowded square, the thud of it striking the victim’s neck made his muscles tense in sympathy. Beside him, Estelle breathed in sharply and looked away. Yuri wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her against his side. “I told you not to come.”

“I know.” Before them, the crowd roared as a man’s head was lifted by the hair and displayed before the masses. “But I have to see for myself.”

Yuri nodded in understanding. It was the same reason he came out every few days to witness the new wave of condemned prisoners sent to the guillotine: they were looking for Flynn. Rather, they desperately hoped to _not_ find Flynn, because as long as he hadn’t been executed, there was a good chance he was still alive. There was another reason they came out to the executions, though, and that was that it was good to be seen as someone who supported them. At least, it was better than being seen as someone who did _not_ support them, because not properly supporting them could fast track you to a starring role in the next batch.

In the middle of the crowd, the next victim was being led to the guillotine. This time it was a woman, stumbling in fear and pleading with the guards escorting her.

Estelle tugged his arm. “Let’s go, Yuri. We’ve seen enough.”

Yuri nodded. He’d scanned the group of condemned prisoners as soon as they arrived and confirmed that Flynn wasn’t among them. Yuri hopped off the wall into an inch of snow and then took Estelle’s hand to help her down. Yuri tugged the edges of her shawl tighter around her shoulders and tried to smile. The swish and thunk of the guillotine behind him dampened the expression. “Let’s head home and get something to eat.”

“Leaving early?” The question came from an elderly woman sitting on a stone bench against the wall. Instead of looking at them, she focused on the knitting needles in her hands.

Yuri eyed the red yarn she used to knit a cap, identical to the one on his own head. Yuri hated the hat and already had plans to burn it as soon as it was safe to do so, but he couldn’t risk anyone looking at him too closely. Estelle couldn’t afford any questions being asked. “Aw, give me a break, _Mamie_. We haven’t eaten all day. My sister is starving.”

The old woman tutted, clearly unimpressed that they were leaving the even early but she seemed to accept their excuse. “Very well, then. Just remember who you have to thank that there’s even food on your table.”

Yuri spread his arm to gesture at the headless woman’s body being pulled away from the dripping guillotine. “How could I forget?”

She glared at him suspiciously, but Yuri wrapped an arm around Estelle and led her away before the conversation could go further. He kept his face passive as they skirted the edge of the crowd. This was neither the time nor the place to let it be known how he truly felt about the proceedings. The pair remained silent, trying to ignore the jeers of the crowd as another prisoner was led up the guillotine. Yuri didn’t need to watch, having seen a lifetime’s worth of beheadings in only a few months.

It wasn’t until they’d left the main square and retreated several blocks away down a dingy, deserted street that Estelle cracked. She tore the red, white, and blue cockade from her hat and threw it to the ground. “I hate this.” She slumped against a brick wall and buried her face in her hands, her fingertips disappearing under the frill of her hat. “I can’t stand watching these things all the time.”

“You don’t have to.” Yuri rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve told you. Stay home and I’ll come to look for him.” Away from the warmth the throng of people provided in the square, the winter air chilled his bones, but he didn’t think that was why Estelle was shaking.

Estelle shook her head and rubbed her tear-filled eyes. “I can’t. I’ve thought of that, but I just know that the one time I don’t go is the day that - that _he’ll_ be there… and I would miss my last chance to see him.”

“Would you want that to be the last image you have of him?” His mind superimposed Flynn’s face on any of the numerous decapitated heads he’d seen and he quickly pushed the thought away.

“No… but I know I would always regret it if I didn’t get to at least see him one more time.” She rubbed her eyes again and Yuri picked up her cockade from the street. When he held it out to her, she pulled her arms around her stomach. “I’d rather not wear it,” she mumbled.

“I know, but you’d be better off putting it on. You think I like wearing this dumb hat?” He tugged on the silly red tail of the Phrygian cap on his head. What made it worse was the embarrassment of thinking that only a few months ago, he’d _liked_ it. It was worn by those who supported the revolution, and at the time Yuri had been quite keen on the idea of getting rid of the king and rule by the people. It had never been in his plans to replace a oppressive king with an oppressive commoner who considered it highly suspicious activity to not sing constant praises of the new republic.

“I just can’t stand wearing the badge of the people who killed my family. I just can’t stand it.”

Yuri sighed. “If you don’t wear the cockade, people will think you don’t support the revolution.”

“But I-”

Yuri placed a finger over her lips before she could say ‘don’t’ aloud, in case just saying the phrase was enough to summon informants. “If they think you don’t, you’ll be questioned. You can’t be questioned, Estelle. Your fake backstory won’t hold up to any scrutiny and someone could very well recognize your face-” plus she was horrible at lying, but he didn’t say that to her, “-and you’ll be outed as the king’s niece. Do you think the men who cut off people’s heads just for saying that maybe they cut off too many heads will have much mercy for a royal who went into hiding?”

“I know that! But - but maybe I don’t care.”

Yuri rested his hand on his hip. He didn’t want to hurt her by using Flynn against her, but it might be the best way to convince her. “Flynn was arrested for helping you, and I’d bet anything the only reason we haven’t see him up there on the chopping block is because they’re trying to get him to tell them where you are. He’s rotting in prison right now to keep you safe, so publicly flaunting your disdain for the revolution seems like a pretty poor way to repay him.”

Estelle stared at him with wide, quivering eyes, and then she hung her head. “You’re right. Of course you are. I’m sorry.” She took the cockade from Yuri and stuck the pin through the ribbon of her mob cap. “Is this what you thought would happen, Yuri? When you stormed into the Bastille a few years ago?”

Yuri closed his eyes for a second and then shook his head. “No. This is not what I fought for at all. At least Louis just ignored our misery; he wasn’t actively causing it like Robespierre.” Then Yuri checked over his shoulder to make sure the alley was still deserted. If any loyal patriots had heard him say that….

In the distance, they heard the crowd cheer as another unfortunate lost their head. Yuri saw Estelle’s eyes drift toward the sound and he took her elbow, tugging her away from the wall. “Come on. I think we might have some bread at home still.”

“Good. I’m ravenous.”

Yuri smiled down at her as they walked through the midwinter slush. Yuri had never considered himself starving on a day where he’d had at least one meal, and they’d already had a small breakfast this morning. Estelle had been coping admirably well in the sudden and sharp shift in her quality of life. Hungry and cold, they left the din of executions behind to return to the tiny home that had felt miserably empty since they lost Flynn.

* * *

 

**10 February, 1794**

Estelle daydreamed about summer evenings in the garden of Versailles as she stared out the window at the dingy street covered in slush. The peculiarity of how quickly and radically life could change still amazed her. Only a few years ago, she’d lived in a jewel of a palace and daily wore dresses worth more than this entire house. She’d always been interested in how people in the outside world lived, so at least now she had first hand experience. Her living conditions were certainly different, considering she lived in a cramped room shared with two other girls, in a cheap house off a narrow street. Before, she’d had no idea how much food cost, and the number wouldn’t have understood the value of the numbers even if she had.

Her forehead bumped against the chill window. Outside, dirty snow piled up against the buildings and clotheslines criss-crossed a street that was almost narrow enough to be an alley. The houses here were cramped together, their front doors opening directly on the street, and several families shared one to split the rent. They were cold, too. Estelle had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and she was still chilly, because they weren’t willing to spend their money on coal to heat the entire house evenly. She missed the comfort of the palace, though she felt guilty for doing so. There was no point complaining about the conditions of life on Rue du Ciel when everyone around her had been putting up with it for their entire lives. At least she’d had twenty-one years of luxury to satisfy her in the past.

The nights had been colder this winter than the last one, though. Last year, when temperatures plummeted and the blankets hardly seemed enough to keep warm, she’d slipped into bed beside Flynn. It was scandalous, she knew, to sleep curled up with a man she wasn’t married to, but considering her life as a princess had screeched to a halt and anybody who cared was probably dead, she thought she could get away with it. With Flynn beside her, the nights had been so warm she could have thought she was back home.

But Flynn was gone now. He’d been arrested last November and now, three months later, she still didn’t even know which prison he was in. She went to executions whenever they were held just to get a glimpse of the condemned, part of her hoping to see him just so she’d _know_ , while a larger part prayed for him to stay missing so she could at least hope he’d be freed soon. The more days that dragged on, the more she worried that she’d simply missed the execution that had taken Flynn. God knew there were so many in Paris these days, let alone elsewhere in the country.

There was a rap on the door and after she called out, Karol poked his head in. “Hi, Estelle. Raven says you should come downstairs.”

“Oh, thank you, Karol.” She recalled how awkward Karol had been when she first arrived her, tripping over himself to be properly respectful. Yuri had knocked him on the head and pointed out that she wasn’t even technically a princess anymore because the new government had abolished the monarchy, but it had still taken some time for him to stop stumbling whenever talking to her. Estelle kept the blanket wrapped around herself like a cape as she followed him down the creaky stairs to the kitchen.

Rita and Judith were sitting at the wooden table across from Raven, while Yuri leaned against the wall with his arms folded. Estelle wasn’t sure she completely understood the relationship between Judith and Yuri, because they didn’t act like any couple she’d ever seen before. She hardly ever saw them show each other affection, but they _were_ married. But then, Judith had once said she and Yuri got married only because she was having trouble securing the rights to her father’s tavern after he died and having a husband to inherit made things simpler. Estelle had decided to just list them as an oddity of life outside the palace and not worry about it. Rita was easier to understand: she’d been taken in by Judith’s family after her parents died when she was very young, and she’d stuck around ever since.

“There’s the lovely _mademoiselle_ ,” Raven said as they entered. There was still snow melting off his leather boots. Raven had a house of his own in a different - and much nicer - part of town, but as the revolution got underway, he’d started associating more and more with his tenants to the point where he was here almost every other night. “Sit down, I have some news.”

Estelle slid into a chair beside Rita. “What is it?” Raven’s face was calm and serious, and that alone tipped her off that this was serious.

“I’ll start with the good news: I know where Flynn is.”

Estelle’s heart leapt and she sat up straighter. Raven had been her best hope for news of Flynn, since he was a member of the Committee of General Security. If only it had been officers assigned under Raven’s division that had arrested Flynn; then he might have had information as soon as it happened.

“But….” Raven folded his arms and looked to Yuri instead of Estelle’s earnest eyes. “I’m afraid that’s the end of the good news. I know where he is ‘cause I saw his name on a list of prisoners ta be executed day after tomorrow.”

Estelle covered her mouth and slumped to the table. Rita’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, but she barely noticed it. It wasn’t… _surprising_ news. By the end of November, she’d known that there was no way Flynn was just waiting to stand before the tribunal and be declared innocent. Intellectually, she had known his imprisonment would end in execution. Actually hearing that it was scheduled, though….

A silence filled the room in the wake of Raven’s announcement. Estelle kept her eyes closed and rested her forehead on her arm as Rita rubbed her shoulders.

“We can’t just let it happen,” Karol said. “I mean… he’s our friend! We have to do something.”

Karol’s words were followed by another silence. Was it possible? Once the Revolutionary Tribunal had condemned someone to death, there was no going back. The guillotine had expedited executions to a gruesome efficiency. But… but Karol was right. If Flynn hadn’t helped her escape Tuileries Palace the night Louis and Antoinette were arrested, she’d be in prison right now instead of Flynn - she might even be dead. Flynn was the best thing that had ever happened in her life, and she couldn’t bear to sit passively and let some rotten big blade lop his head off. She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and pulled her head up. “Karol is right. We have to do something.”

“What kind of thing are you suggesting?” Judith asked.

She gave a quick shake of the head. “I don’t know exactly yet. But we’re going to rescue him!”

“Old man,” Yuri said, “which prison is he in?”

Raven was still grim-faced. “The Conciergerie.”

Estelle winced as her mind filled in the image of that imposing fortress by the Seine, with its thick stone walls and towers. She felt guilty for thinking she was cold here, considering how frigid a cell must be in a stone dungeon damp from the nearby river.

Yuri whistled. “That’s going to be difficult.”

“Hm, yes.” Judith nodded and put a finger to her chin. “A direct assault would never work, and I don’t think we’ll be able to tunnel through those walls in twenty-four hours.”

Rita looked between Yuri and Judith. “Are you guys really planning to try to break him out of there? I mean…” Her face turned to Estelle, now full of sympathy. “I want to help him too, Estelle, but we have to be realistic. No one has ever escaped from the Conciergerie.”

“That just means we’ll have to be the first to do it.” Estelle looked around her group of friends. “I know it will be dangerous, so I can’t ask any of you to help me. But, I can’t just sit here and let Flynn die. I’m going to do anything I can to save him.”

“I’m in, of course.” Yuri left the wall to join the others at the table. “If I help save his life, I’ll be able to throw it in his face forever.”

“I’ll help, too!” Karol said.

Judith leaned forward. “Planning an infiltration of the Conciergerie sounds fun.”

Raven smirked. “You kids would never make it without help from Raven the Great.”

Rita folded her arms and let out a long breath through her nose. “This is crazy. We’re going to get killed.”

Yuri slapped her on the back. “Good to see you’re as optimistic as always.”

“Let’s get started,” Raven said, intertwining his fingers and cracking his knuckles. “If we’re gonna break someone out of the most secure fortress in France, it’s gonna take some plannin’.”

* * *

 

**18 July, 1786**

The summer heat held Paris in its muggy embrace, and the temperature inside the tavern wasn’t much better with so many people packed in and drinking. Sweat dripped down the back of Yuri’s neck as he hustled between the common room and the kitchen in the back, debating if he preferred the stuffy and crowded public area, or the quieter kitchen that was hotter thanks to the ovens. Usually on nights like this, the clientele at La Comète was less rowdy owing to the exhaustion of the heat, but something seemed to have stirred them up today. Many of them were standing and gathering around a table in the corner, their voices raised but jumbled together.

“ _Hé!_ ” Yuri shouted as he carried a tray with flagons of cheap wine. He set this on the table and pushed his way into the crowd. “All of you need to chill out. What’s the problem here?” At the heart of the crowd, he found the source of commotion. Two people were standing, fists clenched, looking about ready to begin a brawl on the tavern floor. The first was a regular costumer Yuri recognized, while the other was a newcomer. The new guy looked young, about Yuri’s age, with scruffy blond hair and a tailored blue coat that looked more expensive than all Yuri’s clothes combined.

“He’s the problem.” The regular shoved a beefy finger at the younger man.

“I’ve done nothing but sit here quietly. You’re the one who decided to cause an issue.”

Yuri looked between the two and sighed. “What’s the problem, Jean?” Food was in the oven back in the kitchen, so this had better not take too long to sort out.

“This bourgeois bastard doesn’t belong here. I saw him this afternoon wearing stockings and breeches and heading into the university.”

Yuri’s eyes flicked back to the blond man. He wore long trousers now, but the cut of the coat betrayed his wealth. “That true?”

The rich boy folded his arms. “So what if it is? I was under the impression this establishment was open to anyone with money to buy food.”

Jean glowered at the young man. “Not open to _your_ kind. We have to deal with your lot all day; and now you want to come intrude on our free time, too?”

“I wasn’t trying to intrude on anything. I just sat down and ordered a sandwich. Why is that a crime?”

Yuri recalled taking his order earlier, and he had to agree that he hadn’t caused any trouble. He’d been quiet and polite, as far as Yuri knew. Still, the crowd was shouting and something had to be done before an actual fight broke out. Hermes, the owner of the tavern, entrusted Yuri with a lot of responsibility to keep things running smoothly, and he wasn’t willing to show he couldn’t do it. “All right.” He pointed at the rich boy. “You, get out.”

He scowled at Yuri. “Kicking out a customer who hasn’t done anything wrong? It looks like it was a mistake to come to your rotten tavern in the first place.”

Yuri grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the crowd and toward the door. It wasn’t fair, but it was a matter of kicking out one newcomer versus a whole crowd of regulars who would happily take their business elsewhere in the future if they thought La Comète was now catering to the bourgeois. He opened the door and shoved to the cheers of the other patrons. The young man stumbled onto the street, and then turned around to give Yuri a piece of his mind.

Before he could begin, Yuri held up a finger and spoke, too softly for the crowd to hear. “Go down the alley on the right. There’s a back door to the kitchen. Dinner’s on me.” He shut the door on his startled face. Turning around, he called, “And all of you need to sit back down and stop causing a ruckus! Now, who’re these for?” He gestured at the wine he’d set down earlier.

When the common room was settled back into jovial drinking, Yuri returned to the kitchen just as the back door opened and the young man from before stepped in cautiously. Rita jumped at the opening of the door and looked over from the wash basin where she was taking care of the dishes. “Who are-”

“Relax,” Yuri said. “I invited him.” Yuri pulled open the cast-iron oven and took out a pair of baked potatoes. “Rita, do me a favour and take these to the guys at the back corner table.”

Rita, who was around eleven years old, hopped off her stool and took the tray from Yuri. She gave Flynn a suspicious look and then left the kitchen.

“Sorry about earlier.” Yuri grabbed a spatula and lifted a piece of pork from the stove. “It’s business. I can’t kick out a whole group of regulars.”

“I understand.”

Yuri set the meat on a bun and threw some grilled vegetables on top. “This is what you ordered, right? I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen.”

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

“So, what’s your name?” Yuri set the plate on the table on the middle of the room.

“It’s Flynn. Flynn Scifo.”

“Yuri Lowell.” They shook hands.

Flynn began to eat while standing at the table, and then Yuri asked, “So, what _are_ you doing here? Don’t you have some swanky party to attend?”

Flynn smirked and lowered his dinner. “I’m not as rich as they make me out to be. Rather, I _was_ rich, but my mother passed away a few months ago. When I came into control of the family finances, I realized she’d been spending irresponsibly to maintain our lifestyle, even though we haven’t had any income since we left Corsica.”

“Corsica? Isn’t that island Italian?”

Flynn nodded. “We are, but France took it over when I was still an infant. Which makes me a French citizen, despite what certain patriotic Frenchmen in my classes want to believe. Anyway, as I was saying, I have enough to get by until I finish university and can begin earning my own money, but until then I’m a little strapped for cash. I was just looking for a cheap meal.”

“I see, I see.” Yuri leaned forward on the table. “Forgive me for not having much sympathy that you’re forced to slum it with the rest of us.”

“I didn’t expect you to. I know that I’ve had an easy life, comparatively. I’m not trying to start anything, I just want to eat and get on with my day.”

“Have you considered getting a job?”

“I don’t really have time. University is eating up all my hours.”

“Well… if you’re not opposed to getting your soft hands dirty, we could use some help around the kitchen here. Scrubbing dishes and whatnot.” Yuri doubted a pampered rich boy had much experience with cleaning, but he definitely wouldn’t have the experience to cook properly. Besides, Rita would be thrilled to have someone else to help with that chore. “No need to set a demanding schedule. Come in when you can, work for a few hours and get a free meal at the end of the night. I’ll talk to the owner about it.”

“Really? That would be great. Thank you.”

“As long as you pull your weight.” Yuri wasn’t too worried, though. He had a good feeling about Flynn Scifo.

* * *

 

**11 February, 1794**

Yuri threw his piece of charcoal on the table. It was past midnight and they were still no closer to thinking up a plan. Estelle put her head down and dug her fingers into her hair. Sheets of old, yellowing paper were spread on the table, covered in diagrams and notes. The sun had long set and the little kitchen was lit by a couple of candles and nothing else. Estelle tracked the time by noting how far down the wax had melted, and they seemed to be melting unusually fast as they counted down to Flynn’s execution.

“We’re getting nowhere,” Yuri said.

Everyone had been excited to begin planning the breakout hours ago, but now Karol was practically asleep at the table and Judith and Rita were blinking heavy eyes.

“Let’s review,” Raven said. “The Conciergerie is on an island in the Seine, so ta escape we’ll have ta sneak across a bridge in full view of the guards. It’s heavily fortified and was built ta withstand sieges back in the 13th century. It’s got armed guards at every exit and he’s most likely in the dungeons, beneath even more security.”

Rita leaned forward with her fists pressing into her cheeks. “We can’t tunnel in on this short notice. We can’t blast through a wall. We can’t climb the outside and sneak in through a window without being seen. We can’t even have the old man use his rank to bluff him out, ‘cause his name’s on the list now to be executed.”

Their glum faces surveyed the diagrams on the table. They had exhausted every possibility and were still left with the sick reality than thirty-six hours from now, Flynn would be dead. Karol was the only one not looking glum, but that was because he’d fallen asleep. Considering it was past midnight by now, Estelle couldn’t blame him.

Yuri’s chair thumped against the wall when he abruptly stood up. A storm raged behind his carefully blank face, but all he said was, “Karol needs to go to bed.” He shook Karol’s shoulder and muttered, “Hey, Karol, time to go upstairs.”

Karol raised his head, blinking. “I - I wasn’t sleeping…. W-what are we d-d-doing-” he covered his mouth to yawn, “-to save Flynn?”

“You can help more tomorrow. Time for bed.” Yuri tugged Karol’s arm and led him out the room. Estelle heard them going upstairs while the rest of them sat in glum silence.

Judith leaned back and folded her arms. “I suppose it wouldn’t work to charge through the front door, guns blazing.”

Raven let out a humourless laugh. “We’d all be killed, but I’m almost tempted ta try.”

Estelle knew how he felt. She needed to do _something_ or else she’d spend the rest of her life wondering if Flynn could have been saved if only she’d tried. At the same time, she recalled Yuri’s words from the other day and knew that the last thing Flynn would want was her to risk her life. He’d put himself at great risk to ensure her safety, so not risking it was the best way to repay his sacrifice.

When Yuri hadn’t returned after a few minutes, Estelle left the table to see what was taking him so long. She was about to turn to ascend the stairs when she spotted him standing in the darkness of the front parlour, arms folded and staring out the front window. He looked up when her footsteps approached.

“Can you even see anything?” she asked softly when she drew beside him. Outside, the moonlit street was just barely brighter than the room.

Yuri didn’t bother answering her question. “We’re not going to break Flynn out of the Conciergerie.”

He heart clenched. She’d known it was a long-shot when they first begun planning, and her optimism had gradually dimmed over the evening, but she wasn’t ready to give up hope yet. “Don’t say that. We’ll think of a way.”

Yuri shook his head. “They call the Conciergerie the antechamber of the guillotine. Hundreds of people have been locked up in there and then moved on to the guillotine since September alone.” Yuri sneered at the window. “Oh, I’m sorry, I mean ‘since Vendémiaire.’”

Estelle attempted the tiniest of smiles. The government demanded everyone start using their modern, secular calendar, but Estelle thought the whole thing was rather silly. “It was Fructidor, actually.”

“Should have known it was Fructidor when everyone suddenly went bananas. But the point stands: if it was possible to break someone out, it would have been done already. We’re not the first people to have a loved one locked up in there. I don’t think it can be done.”

Estelle closed her eyes briefly. “No, we’re not. And Flynn isn’t even the first loved one _I’ve_ had imprisoned there.” Her hands bunched into fists and she squeezed her eyes. “My aunt was in there, too.”

Yuri glanced down at her. “I’m sorry, Estelle.”

“I know you didn’t like her. Nobody liked Marie Antoinette… but you never got to meet her.” Estelle opened her eyes and stared out the street that was so different from the home she used to know. “She made me feel welcome in France after my father died, and encouraged me to read what I wanted no matter what the court said about propriety. I couldn’t help her when Flynn smuggled me out of Tuileries palace, and I couldn’t do anything when they cut off her head. I just… just stood there and the crowd cheered, just like they did when my uncle was killed…. Like when they killed Princesse de Lambelle and put her head on a pike, even though she was always kind to me. A-and like when they hacked Mariette to death, even though she was only a maid, and her b-blood got all over my dress.” Her breath hitched and she had to take a moment to gain control of her heart as the memories of all that violence flooded over her. “Just like they’ll do for Flynn the day after - no, it’s after midnight, tomorrow.” She shook her head. “I can’t do it again, Yuri. I don’t want to stand by and do nothing while the revolutionaries systematically behead everyone I ever cared about.”

Yuri stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. “Ah, what the hell, I have nothing going for me anyway. I’ll sneak into the Conciergerie tomorrow night and do my best.”

“What? You can’t go alone.”

“Of course I can. One guy is less likely to be spotted.”

“How are you going to do it?”

“I have no idea. I have the rest of the day to figure it out, but it’ll probably involve climbing a wall and going through a window.”

“Well, then I’m going with you.”

“No. We’ve talked about this. You need to protect yourself or else Flynn-”

“His sacrifice will be in vain. I know, Yuri. But if you go by yourself, all that will happen is that the next morning, _two_ people I care about will be led out of the prison in chains on their way to the guillotine.”

“Don’t have so little faith in me. Maybe I’ll make it.”

Estelle wasn’t actually listening, though. She kept repeating her own words in her head, certain that an idea was forming. “Yuri… it’s impossible to break into the prison. But what if we let other people take him out? I mean… this would be cutting it _really_ close, but… they’ll take him out of the prison that morning to load him onto the cart to take him to the guillotine. The Conciergerie is impenetrable, but what about security on a cart?”

Yuri stared at her. She waited for him to point out the flaw in her plan, or how it still wouldn’t rescue Flynn, but the pause dragged on without a counterpoint. Then Yuri grabbed her shoulders. “Estelle, you’re brilliant.”

* * *

 

**12 February, 1794**

Pont Neuf, which meant “New Bridge”, was the oldest bridge in Paris. It crossed the Seine with a pit-stop on the tip of the Île de la Cité, the island in the river that had been the heart of the city many centuries ago. On the northern bank of this island stood the imposing towers and battlements of what had once been a palace of medieval kings, but had now been converted into a prison for use by the Revolutionary Tribunal. Across the bridge on the north bank of the river was the Quai du Louvre. This was a tree-lined boulevard that led along the river, past the Louvre Palace - although, just like the Conciergerie, the revolution had also transformed that building into a less-royal function - in this case, an art museum.

After passing that former palace, the road led past the expansive and beautiful Tuileries Garden - no, that wasn’t right either. Yuri was getting annoyed with all these name changes; he felt like he barely knew the city he’d been born in. They called it the National Garden now, and its beauty had been greatly tarnished when hundreds of guards were chased into and massacred the night Flynn helped Estelle escape the revolution. At the edge of the garden, the road connected with the wide public square which had formerly been known as the Place Louis XV. To Yuri’s consternation, it had _also_ been renamed. He was pretty sure they were calling it Place de la Révolution now, but considering how many hundreds of heads had left their bodies at the centre of the square, Yuri thought it ought to have been renamed Place de la Guillotine.

Yuri was not on the Quai du Louvre. In fact, he was about fifteen feet above it - which he thought was about four and half metres, which he had to know now because the goddamn Republic insisted they use this goddamn metric system, even though feet had been serving them perfectly well for hundreds of years. This whole revolution was such a joke. He’d gotten involved at first because the general idea of ‘hey, wouldn’t it be neat to have a constitution like they have in England? How about if the king had less absolute power?’ was appealing. Now, the Jacobins with Robespierre at the head and his Committee of Public Safety (and wasn’t _that_ name a joke in itself) had flipped the country on its head, commanding they use a new calendar, clock, and measurements while beheading anyone who offered his regime constructive criticism. Yuri had never felt more unsafe nor oppressed in this country, which he thought was the opposite of what a people’s uprising was supposed to end in.

The glorious revolution of the people had flipped Yuri’s life upside down, but he was not going to let it take away his best friend, too. So he crouched on the iron railing of a balcony, one hand on the branch of a tree that rose up from the street and would have concealed him better if it still had leaves The other hand gripped a pistol. On the street below, Rita sat next to a flower stand on the low wall above the Seine, while Karol ran up and down the street rolling a hoop with a stick. Disgruntled passersby gave him dirty looks as the boy nearly crashed into them.

Then Yuri saw it: the boxy cart - more like a cage on wheels - trundling over Pont Neuf. Rita noticed it, too, and looked up through the trees to Yuri, then down the block at Karol.

“Karol!” she called. “Stop messing around and bothering people! Get back here, you brat.”

Karol paused and looked back, then saw the prison cart crossing the river. “Sorry, sis!” He set his hoop into motion once more and began running back toward Rita, concentrating on keeping the wooden wheel spinning and upright. Yuri glanced from Karol to the cart, which had crossed the bridge and was now moving toward them down the road. Every nerve tensed. The problem with this plan was that there was no time for a margin of error. If they messed up now, the guillotine was only five minutes away.

Karol dashed next to the wall and gave the hoop and big whack. It rolled forward, out of his control, and he sprinted to catch up, his eyes locked on the hoop. Then, the hoop smashed into the side of the flimsy flower stall, shortly followed by the boy. The stall collapsed and flowers went flying, spilling across the dirt street.

The young woman behind it shrieked as her wares covered half the street. “ _Imbécile!_ ” She whacked Karol’s head as he sat on the ground, surrounded by flowers. “You help me pick these up!”

Pedestrians on the street gave Karol a dirty look as they picked their way around the flowers, though a few were kind enough to stop and begin cleaning.

“Sorry, sorry!” Karol gushed, scrambling to begin picking up flowers.

Rita jumped off the wall and stalked over. “I told you to watched where you were going!” She stood in the middle of the road, arms spread.

Behind her, the prison cart reached the commotion. Yuri spied terrified faces through the wooden bars and he scanned them one by one to find Flynn. It was too tightly packed, though. Over a dozen people were squeezed inside; for all his faults, Robespierre was at least efficient.

“Out of the way!” the cart driver called, waving his hand as the horse snorted in displeasure at the commotion.

Rita paid him no head as she berated Karol, while a handful of others were busy picking up the flowers. Yuri suspected some of them were trying to help, while others were planning to simply take the flowers to sell themselves.

The cart driver sighed, picked up the reins, and directed the horse to go around the mess. To avoid all the people and flowers strewn across the road, the cart had to skirt very close to the edge of the road, nearly scraping the tree trunks that lined the boulevard. This brought the cart directly beneath Yuri’s hiding spot.

There was no time to second-guess himself when the moment arrived. Yuri leapt from the balcony and landed on the front seat with a crashed. The driver jumped in fright but before Yuri could even process that he’d landed, he shoved the barrel of his gun into the man’s ribs and screamed, “Get off the cart or I’ll blow you off!” This was accompanied by a shove, and the man scrambled off his seat within ten seconds of Yuri landing. While the onlookers were still frozen in shock at his sudden appearance, Yuri grabbed the reins, picked up the discarded whip, cracked it as loud as he could, and shouted, “Hyah!”

The horse bolted. Yuri directed it around a corner and the cart nearly tipped over. The prisoners shouted in confusion as they bounced an jolted past the Louvre. People shouted and ran after him, so Yuri cracked the whip again and encouraged the horse to go as fast as it could. Yuri had not, in fact, ever driven a horse cart before, but he didn’t think it would be too difficult. The street past the Louvre was still a major thoroughfare, so he steered around another corner and once again nearly capsized the entire thing. He felt a little bad about the poor people standing in the back and all the bruises they’d have after this, but if all went according to plan they would still have their heads at the end of the day and he thought that was a fair trade.

People ran screaming out of the way as he took the cart down a street not at all intended for large vehicles. People were also running screaming behind him, but they were growing farther and farther away. Angry prison guards couldn’t keep up with a galloping horse, even if it was dragging a load of terrified prisoners behind. They had left the broad streets behind and now he was steering through the twisty warren of roads where the poor lived. Yuri had grown up here and still found it easy to get lost, so he hoped anyone following him would quickly lose his trail.

He finally pulled the cart to a halt in the middle of an alley. There were a few feet of space on either side of the cart before hitting damp brick sides of houses. Just ahead of him sat another cart, this one much smaller and filled with kitchen scraps on their way to the dump. The woman leaning against its side gave Yuri a little wave.

Yuri waved back and then hopped to the ground. He rounded the cart while confused and frightened prisoners stared at him through the bars. At the back, he swung open the door and looked in on their shocked faces. “ _Bonjour_ , ladies and gentlemen! Thank you for choosing Le Conciergerie Express for your travel needs today. I’m afraid I’m a little new at this and I seem to have taken a wrong turn. If you could all do me the favour of disembarking and walking to the Place de la Revolution yourselves, I would be much obliged.”

There was still no answer as the group gazed at him, though some hung their mouths open.

Yuri stepped aside and held out his arm. “Of course, I’m not going to follow you to make sure you actually head there…. You _could_ hurry back to your families, pack up what you can and then leave the city, making sure to change your names and establish a new life in the countryside… but we’re all law-abiding citizens of the Republic, so I’m sure that never crossed your minds.”

The first prisoner hesitantly stepped down from the cart, gave Yuri a nervous look, and then started running. Tension released, the rest of them spilled out behind him. Some murmured a quick, “Thank you,” as they passed, while others just took of running. Yuri examined every face, holding his breath to see the one they’d done all this for. When the last person stepped off the cart, and she wasn’t Flynn, his heart sank. Anger and despair rushed through his head, blurring his vision. They’d messed up. Flynn must have been on a different cart, maybe heading to one of the other execution sites in the city, or maybe they’d take him out in the afternoon. They couldn’t get away with this a second time. It was too late. They’d failed.

Then he realized there was still one person in the cart, sitting on the floor and slumped into the corner. Judith was leaving her rubbish cart and approaching him when Yuri jumped into the cage. “Flynn?” There was no movement from the person slumped in corner, and he was so thin and ragged that with his face turned away it was hard to recognize him. All Yuri saw was a mess of blond hair above skin that was sickly pale. “Flynn… you still among the living?” He said it casually, but the worry was real.

There was no answer and Yuri moved toward the lump with dread. Not now, not after everything they’d done, not when they were so close…. When he crouched, he saw the shudder of a rising chest and relief filled Yuri’s own. Flynn was passed out, but he was alive. Lanky, unwashed hair hung around his face, and Yuri was certain the bruises and cuts on his cheeks continued beneath his unshaven scruff of a beard.

Carrying Flynn would once have been difficult, but now his clothes hung limp on a frame that was little more than skin and bone. He slipped his arm beneath Flynn’s knees and under his back and then lifted. Flynn’s gasped he was moved, though his eyes remained shut. Yuri went as quickly as he could to get his suffering over with as soon as possible. Judith met him at the entrance to the cart and took Flynn’s legs so they could split his weight. Flynn was breathing heavily as they carried him past the prison cart and to the one Judith had brought. The piles of mouldy cabbage, carrot stems, stale bread, and reeking cheese lay on top of a net. Judith grabbed the edges of this that hung over the back and lifted the entire mass up.

“Sorry, Flynn,” Yuri muttered. “This is going to smell really bad.”

Flynn made no sound as they slid him onto the small cart beneath the pile of refuse and then lowered the net and pile over him. The cart was just big enough that there was a foot of space between Flynn’s feet and the end, which was enough for the net to lay smooth and show no sign that anything was hidden beneath. Yuri hopped onto the driver’s seat and changed into a dark blue coat Judith had brought. He tucked his hair beneath a red Phrygian hat and then took up the reins of the old mare.

“Sorry,” Yuri called back to the horse he left with the prison cart. “Your owners will be along soon to get you. Thanks for the ride.” Then they drove their little cart onto a wider street and blended into the flow of traffic. Nobody gave them a second glance as they snuck their fugitive through the streets.


	2. When Things Fell Apart

**12 February, 1794**

Estelle was frustrated that she’d had to stay home, but she understood the reasons. She was the one the revolutionaries were looking for, so it didn’t make sense to have be part of the distraction to get the cart in the right position. She’d helped formulate the plan, so she didn’t feel completely useless as she sat at home with Raven, anxiously staring out the front window. The fact that Raven had been told to stay home, too, made her feel a little better. If he was seen helping them, he’d have to go underground too and lose his in with the committee.

“They’re coming!” Estelle leapt to her feet and ran to the door. She threw it open as the cart pulled up in front of the house. She couldn’t even find the words to ask Yuri and Judith if they had succeeded, but her wide, pleading eyes said it all.

“Don’t worry.” Judith hopped down from the cart and smiled. “We got him.”

She fell against the door frame in relief.

“Hey, old man!” Yuri called. “Come help us carry him in.”

Now Estelle began to worry anew. Why did Flynn need to be carried? Judy lifted the concealing cover of refuse and Raven helped Yuri lifted Flynn from the cart. Yuri lifted him under the arms while Raven carried his legs, and together they carried him into the house.

“Take him upstairs.” Estelle tried to control her shaking hands at the sight of Flynn’s emaciated body. The thought of what injuries lay beneath his loose, ragged clothing terrified her. “Lay him on his bed.” Estelle hurried up the narrow staircase after them to one of two rooms on the second floor. The room was smaller than closets Estelle had seen at Versailles, with a grubby window looking down at their tiny scrap of garden behind the house, a chest of drawers, and two beds shoved into the corners. Originally, Flynn had slept on the narrower one while Yuri and Karol shared the larger one, but the boys had spread out these past three months when the room’s occupancy went down to two. They were all glad the third tenant had returned to claim his bed.

“I’ve gotta get goin’,” Raven said. “They’ll want all hands on deck ta organize a search for the escaped prisoners. I’ll try ta derail the search as much as I can.”

“Thanks for the help,” Yuri said as Raven left.

“Did the rescue go as planned?” Estelle asked as she and Yuri stood over the bed, where Flynn lay shivering.

Yuri nodded. “No hitches. Karol and Rita will be back soon; it’s just taking them longer since they had to walk from the river.”

“I see.” She couldn’t take her eyes off Flynn’s gaunt face. “Yuri, will you please bring me the water from the kitchen, and then go to the fountain to get more?”

Yuri nodded and then left. Estelle sat on the edge of the bed and reached for Flynn’s hand to stroke it, and then pulled back when she saw the mess of crooked, swollen, and bruised fingers. “Oh, Flynn….” Estelle found herself shaking again, so she made a mental list of things to be done. First of all, Flynn was filthy. His clothes - hardly more than rags supplied by the prison - needed to go. He reeked, and though Estelle had had to get used to lower standards of hygiene since she went into hiding, even this was too much. She wondered if he’d been given any chance to bathe at all while in prison. His fingers were clearly broken, so she’d have to set them straight if she could and then inspect his body for any other injuries she could do something about.

Yuri returned with the wooden bucket of drinking water. “Here. I’ll go replenish our supply.”

“Thank you.” Estelle rose to take the items, turned back to Flynn and took a deep breath, and then began setting up. She dragged a little three-legged stood to the side of the bed, fetched clean clothes from the dresser, and ran to the kitchen to get flat pieces of kindling and a knife to cut up one of her own dresses to make bandages. Keeping busy helped keep the sadness at bay. When everything was laid out on the floor beside Flynn’s bed, she set to work.

Estelle cut the shirt away from Flynn’s chest. It was filthy and ripped, plus she doubted he would ever want to wear a reminder of that place again. This way, she didn’t have to move his arms to pull it over his head. When the rags had been tossed aside, she had a proper view of the burns fighting for real estate on his torso against deep purple bruises indicating broken ribs. Flynn shivered as the cold air of the room hit his exposed skin, so Estelle tried to work quickly. She dipped a cloth into the water and gently washed him from neck to waist, taking extra care around the still-healing burns. Even though she went as gently as she could, Flynn’s breath kept hitching when she hit a sore spot, which were hard to miss due to how numerous they were.

After cleaning his torso, Estelle picked up the loose beige shirt and then used one arm to support his shoulders and lift him up enough to slip it over his head. She took his wrist to gently guide it through the sleeve, but as his arm moved, Flynn suddenly gasped, “ _S-sott’a_!”

It took Estelle by so much surprise she dropped him and he moaned.

“I’m sorry!” She had no idea what he’d said in Italian, but it was obvious she’d caused him pain.

 _“S-Sott’a…_ ” Flynn mumbled. “ _Lu ponte…._ ”

His shirt was over his head, so Estelle carefully tugged it up to see his face. Flynn’s eyes were half-open but he stared vacantly at the ceiling. Now that he was awake and in pain, his breathing came more heavily.

“It’s just me, Flynn.” She made her voice as soft as she could and reached for his head to stroke his hair. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, but you need to put your shirt on. It’s very cold in here.”

Flynn still didn’t look at her, but he flinched when her fingers touched his hair. Estelle pulled away and her hands moved to the arm nearest her. She noticed now how swollen and red his elbow was, and coupled with the dark bruising around his shoulder, it was no wonder he was reluctant to move his arm. She decided to wrap them in bandages first to try to stabilize the joints.

“Sh… this will help.” Her fingers were soft and delicate as they began winding long strips of cotton around his elbow to try to compress and immobilize it. All the joints in his arms were at least partially bruised and inflamed. Estelle had a good idea of what had caused these injuries, but she didn’t want to think about it right now. Every time she touched Flynn, he winced and mumbled in Italian. Estelle had lightly studied Italian in the months after she met Flynn, because she enjoyed seeing his face light up when she said something to him in his mother tongue. She hadn’t had time to become anything close to fluent, but it was enough to make out isolated, strained words like ‘no’, ‘stop’, and ‘please’. She wondered if Flynn was even aware of his location, or if he was convinced he was still in prison and Estelle was just another torturer making him hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again when she’d finished wrapping his joints. She wasn’t sure if the wrappings around his shoulders would even do anything, but at least they served double-duty by also encircling his chest to help with his ribs, and over the lacerations criss-crossing his back. “I’m going to put your shirt on now.” Estelle had no idea if Flynn even understood her. He wasn’t speaking any French now, so she wondered if he was able to understand it. She put more effort into her tone, hoping that if she kept talking softly and gently, it would get through to him even if her words didn’t.

“I’ll move slowly. You’ll be warmer after this. Just lift your arm enough to get it through the sleeve.”

Flynn whimpered as his arm moved toward the sleeve and his swollen shoulder flexed. “ _Ci… ci luca,”_ he gasped. “ _Ci luca la luna…._ ”

Estelle got that arm through and then reached across the bed to do the other. Flynn whined again as that arm was also moved onto the sleeve and she pulled the shirt down, as carefully as she could. “I’m sorry it hurts. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to freeze. I’m going to try to splint your fingers, now. It’s going to hurt, I’m sorry, but we can’t let them heal like this or you’ll never use your hand again.”

She had picked the smoothest, straightest pieces of kindling in the kitchen, which she hoped was good enough. “I’m going to touch your fingers now. I’m sorry it hurts.”

As soon as Estelle’s fingers closed around Flynn’s, he yelped and pull his hand away. “ _In celu!_ ” Tears gleamed in his eyes. “ _In celu e stelle!_ ”

Estelle looked to his face. “E… stelle? In celu… Estelle?”

Flynn blinked at the ceiling and then slowly his eyes drifted to her. For the first time, Flynn met her eyes. In a frightened voice, he mumbled, “ _In celu e stelle…. E stelle.”_

She nodded and rested her hand on her chest. “Estelle. It’s me, Flynn. It’s Estelle. You’re home.”

“E…stelle. Estelle?”

Her head bobbed. “Yes! Yes, Estelle. It’s your Estelle.”

At long last, recognition reached Flynn’s face. In that moment, hope swelled in Estelle’s breast and she believed everything would go back to normal as soon as Flynn’s injuries healed.

The hope only lasted a moment. Flynn’s face turned from recognition to a snarl of hatred. _“Va via! Puttana!_ ”

“Huh?!” Whatever those meant, she could tell from his rough shout they hadn’t been kind. She reached for his wrist. “No, Flynn, it’s me!”

Flynn lashed out, smacking her hands away and then jerking his arm back as the contact caused him pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head. Finally he remembered how to speak French, at least enough to hiss, “Go away.”

“F-flynn…? What’s wrong? I just want to help.”

“Go away,” he repeated, louder and hoarser.

“But… I just….”

“ _Vaffanculo_!”

Estelle’s mouth hung open but no words could get past her heart throbbing in her throat. With no idea what else to do, Estelle rose from the stool and drifted out of the room. She couldn’t believe she was leaving Flynn in this state, but she also didn’t want to cause him any more harm by staying.

As she left, she heard his voice become a whisper as he returned to Italian and began to emotionlessly recite words. “ _In li castagni. Si lagna lu ventu. I nostru lume. Sara prestu spentu. Dormi. …Dormi….”_

* * *

 

**9 November, 1793**

Flynn remembered the day he had been arrested with vivid clarity. Many of his memories had become jumbled during his months of confinement, but that day - what he had frequently thought would be his last experiences of pleasure in this life - were engraved in his mind.

It had begun so well. He awoke from slumber to find Estelle squeezed onto the side of the bed, pressed against him. It was often nightmares that drove her to spend the rest of the night with him, so he felt guilty for enjoying her presence. Estelle rarely admitted when she’d suffered overnight, but Flynn had noticed he’d woken up with her beside him much more often in the past month. She claimed it was because the weather was turning cold, but Flynn was certain it had to do with witnessing Marie Antoinette’s execution in October.

Outside, wind thrashed against their window and Flynn put off getting out of bed. Across the room, Yuri and Karol’s bed was already empty so he knew he ought to get up and start the day soon. Before he resigned himself to facing the cold world beyond his blanket, he wrapped his arms around Estelle and pulled her closer, so she was less likely to fall off the bed. Many things in both their lives had fallen to disaster during the revolution, but one tiny silver lining was how close he could now be to Estelle.

Flynn brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. He had thought she was beautiful the first time she came stumbling up to him at Versailles, but found her so much more so now that he got to see her like this. Her face scrubbed clean of paint, her hair loose and free of powder or wig extensions. Away from Versailles and the court, they were free to be themselves, and free to lie in each others’ embrace no matter what etiquette would say about an unmarried couple behaving this way.

Estelle had lost far more than he had in the revolution, of course, but even Flynn now lived with a mark on his head for his involvement in smuggling her to safety. Not that he regretted doing so in the least - he would storm a thousand castles to keep this girl safe.

Estelle opened her eyes and for a second seemed confused about where she was, but quickly either remembered coming here in the night, or else decided that waking up with Flynn wasn’t something to worry about regardless. “Good morning,” she mumbled.

“Morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Hmm… well enough. I’m sorry I crowded your bed.”

“It’s not a problem at all.” He ran a hand over her cheek. When they’d first met, the hand had been almost as soft as hers. A couple of years of scrubbing dishes and heavy lifting at La Comète had toughened them up, but she didn’t seem to mind. “But, I’m afraid I need to get going. I promised Judith I would go to the market with her to help carry some sacks of flour.”

“Ok. Will you come back at midday?”

“I will. We’ll have lunch together.”

“Good.” Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “ _Ti amo_.” Estelle had been very pleased with herself when she’d learned to tell Flynn she loved him in his mother tongue.

“ _Ich liebe dich_.” And he’d learned it in hers. “I’ll see you when I get home, _cara mia_.”

La Comète was directly behind their house. Rather than walking all the way around, Flynn left the house through the back door, crossed the square of garden where carrots flourished underground, and climbed onto the barrel against the back wall. It was a short hop into the alley behind the tavern, and then he entered through the back door. Judith and Yuri sat on the floor of the kitchen, ostensibly cleaning considering the bucket of sudsy water and brushes, but actually chatting. Yuri had his arm around her shoulders, and Flynn felt he should have knocked. He was well aware how frustrating it could be to have a minute alone together in a house with six people.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Don’t worry,” Yuri said. “I didn’t want to wake you up when you looked so cozy.”

“I appreciate the gesture. Judith, do you still plan to go to the market?”

“Yes, I do. I suppose we should get going; the lines might be long.” She rose from the floor, ruffled Yuri’s hair, and then left again with Flynn.

As they strolled down the street, Flynn said, “I must say, I’ve always found your relationship with Yuri to be very odd.”

“Odd? Why do you say that?”

“I don’t think anyone would guess from looking at you that you’re married. You don’t even sleep in the same room.”

Judith shrugged as they turned onto a major street. “Oh, that’s a convenience issue. There’s three boys and three girls and two bedrooms, so it’s the simplest way to split up the sleeping arrangements.”

Flynn hopped over a puddle in the dirt street. “Is it true that the only reason you married him was to streamline the inheritance of La Comète?”

“I don’t know if I’d say it was the _only_ reason. I wouldn’t have married him if I didn’t like him at all. Besides, it turned out well for him, since the _levée en masse_ only drafted unmarried men. I’m sure he was very pleased with his certificate of marriage when that little announcement came around.”

Flynn nodded in understanding. The mass conscription had been one of the Republic’s less popular moves when they put it into place last August. He could see their reasonings, since basically every monarchical country that bordered France saw the Republic as a threat to their status quo. They were facing invasion from all sides, so he saw the need for a draft, even if he himself wasn’t thrilled at the idea of turning up for it. Had circumstances been different, he would have done his duty, but since the Republic considered him a counterrevolutionary and traitor for helping Estelle, turning up for the draft would be as good as turning himself in to be executed.

“Why are you asking?” Judith elbowed his ribs. “Jealous I didn’t ask you to be my husband?”

Flynn huffed and looked away. “Not at all.”

“Not at all? You wouldn’t want to marry me at all? Am I that ugly?”

“W-what?! No, I didn’t mean to imply that at all!”

“So you _do_ think I’m pretty.”

Flynn, whose cheeks were sufficiently warm on the chilly autumn morning, took in her playful smile and knew he was being teased. “You’re sufficiently good-looking. Yuri’s a lucky man, but then again, so am I.”

“Aw, too bad.” She interlocked her fingers and reached them up to stretch. “I guess I can’t compete with a princess.”

They reached the broad street that housed the local market. In days past, the street had been lined with stalls brimming with goods for sale. These days, the number of vendors was little more than a handful, with long lines to buy the scant food available. The food crisis wasn’t the Republic’s fault, since they’d been enduring a drought since Louis was still on the throne, but the constant edge of hunger throughout the city did little to pacify the revolutionary fervour.

Luckily, the line for flour was shorter than the one for bread. They were better off than most, since Yuri and Judith owned a business. It was a struggle to stay afloat, but afloat they were. The worst they ever went to bed as was peckish, rather than starving. After purchasing the sacks of flour, they turned to head home when a commotion in the line for bread caught their attention. It appeared that the vendor had run out of bread, and now a pair of women were fighting over the last loaf. At first they were just shouting, but as Flynn watched, a woman in red shoved the woman clutching the baguette and she crashed into the stall.

The vendor shouted and tried to clear them away before their fighting damaged his stall even more, but they weren’t hearing it and the crowd in line behind them were cheering them on. Well aware that women rioting over bread had directly led to the royal family being forced out of Versailles, Flynn stepped forward to intervene. He heard Judith warning him to stay out of it, but Flynn couldn’t help himself. Leaving his sack of flour at Judith’s feet, Flynn hurried into the throng and grabbed the woman in red.

“Calm down.” He put himself between the feuding women, bracing himself against the punches he intercepted. “Fighting won’t summon more baguettes.”

“My children are starving!” the woman shrieked, to a chorus of jeers and agreements from the rest of the crowd.

“So are mine!” The woman with the baguette guarded it jealously against her chest. “I got here first! Go find another market!”

“ _Salope_! I saw you buying cheese yesterday! You have enough already!”

Flynn was having trouble holding the women apart and was hoping for outside help, but when he heard the sound of help arriving, his blood ran cold.

“Settle down, settle down,” came a slithery voice. A man in a velvet frock coat covered in gleaming silver buttons strode onto the scene, his face shadowed by his tricorn hat. The crowd grew still as Cumore surveyed them, and Flynn immediately dropped his arms and his head. “What is the ruckus here?”

The woman in red looked away. “It’s nothing.”

Flynn kept his face glued to the ground, not daring to meet Cumore’s eyes. He wanted to slide out of the crowd and disappear, but with everyone standing motionless before the intimidating captain of the Committee of General Security, making a run for it would only draw attention to himself.

“She tried to steal my bread!” The woman thrust her finger at the other and Flynn took this chance to step out of the way on the pretence of clearing the view.

Cumore approached, raising Flynn’s anxiety. Flynn shuffled behind another man and kept his head down, glad Cumore’s attention was focused on the woman in red. “Is that true?” Cumore demanded of her.

She shook her head and waved her hands. “N-no! I was merely frustrated that I couldn’t make a purchase, but I didn’t try to take anything. Please, _monsieur!_ ”

“ _Monsieur_? You would address me as ‘ _monsieur_ ’ rather than ‘citizen’? You support the old hierarchy of classes! Just as I suspected: a royalist through and through.”

Her head shaking became more adamant. “Not at all! It is just habit! I’m sorry, _mon_ \- _citoyen!_ ”

His eyes flicked over her trembling frame. “You are not wearing a cockade.”

Her hand flew to her hat as her face blanched. “W-what? Oh, oh no, I forgot to put it on this morning. I was in a rush - I didn’t think-”

“You care so little for the Republic that you couldn’t even take a second from your day to put on a pin to show your support?” Cumore waved to the guards standing by. “Seize her. I think the tribunal will want to fully examine the depth of her loyalty.”

“No!”

She shrieked and back away as if to hide in the crowd, but everyone else was busy edging away from her, afraid that mere proximity to an accused traitor would get them branded as one, too.

Flynn saw Judith hanging back. When he met her eyes, she gave him a tiny shake of her head. Flynn knew he had lucked out; Cumore’s attention was on someone else, and Flynn would be able to slip away after this without a fuss.

Except…. There were tears in the woman’s eyes as the guard grabbed her arm. “Please, please, I have children. I do support the Republic, I do! Please, my children have no one else!”

Flynn couldn’t stop himself. He stepped forward, grabbed the guard’s arm and ripped it away from the woman. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. You would potentially condemn someone to death merely because you’re having a slow day and you’re bored?”

Cumore whipped his head around to see who dared oppose him, and his annoyed face turned to glee when his eyes landed on Flynn. Over his shoulder, Flynn saw Judith close her eyes in a wince.

“Well, well!” Cumore said. “If it isn’t the Italian! The last time I saw you, you were leading that royal whore away from Tuileries Palace. Ignore that wench,” he snapped at his guards, “we have more important criminals to take in today.”

The woman gave Flynn a frightened look, and then took off running without a word. There was now a wide space around Flynn and Cumore as the crowd wanted to make it very clear they had nothing to do with this criminal. Flynn considered his chances of making a run for it and decided against it. If he was going to die, he’d rather it not be struck down from behind as he tried to run away. Cumore would take far too much pleasure in that.

His arms were grabbed and twisted behind his back. “Do you even know that woman?” Cumore asked. “I hope you’re satisfied with dying for her.”

Flynn gave Judith only a small glance as he was pushed into walking. He didn’t want Cumore to know she was with him. He hoped she understood the apology on his face. _I’m sorry, Estelle._

* * *

 

**12 February, 1794**

The door slammed shut and Flynn stared at the wall. _Where am I?_ There was a bed. A blanket. This was not his cell. _Where am I?_ His memory blurred. He’d thought they were taking him to the guillotine (finally), but now he was somewhere new and different. _Where AM I?_ It wasn’t his cell and it wasn’t the torture chamber so it must be a new place where they would use new techniques on him (please not again).

Flynn moaned and tried to move. He hadn’t been able to walk for a couple of weeks now, so he didn’t think he’d get far. He had to try, though! He had to run, run, run away before Cumore came back with some new horror and made Flynn wish he could just die already.

But he’d seen Estelle. Right? He thought so, though he couldn’t be sure of anything these days. They caught her and he hadn’t told them where she was. That meant he was no longer useful to them, and they were angry at him for not telling. They probably thought the guillotine was too easy for him. A million torturous deaths flashed through his mind and every injured throbbed just thinking of it. Flynn moaned once more and tried to stop his shaking, because every tiny movement sent out waves of pain. He needed to get out of here, but he just… couldn’t….

The door opened and Flynn jolted. Footsteps came closer and he squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving and ribs cracking (hurt so much; it all hurt so, so much). Someone was standing next to him now and Flynn braced himself for the strike, for the rough hands to drag him off the bed and to some horrible new place, for fresh pain to arrive to replace the injuries that were starting to fade, for -

“Flynn?” A hand landed on his shoulder.

Flynn jerked away and his heart raced. “Don’t!” _Don’t touch me, don’t hurt me, please let this stop_.

The hand left - unusual. He was used to his cries of protest being ignored.

“It’s me, Flynn. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s Yuri.”

Yuri. It couldn’t be. Yuri couldn’t be here. Yuri couldn’t be part of this.

“You’re safe, Flynn. We got you out. You’re back home and no one is going to hurt you.”

Flynn almost couldn’t hear over his hammering heart. Safe. Home. Yuri. Was it possible? Was he dreaming? How could a dream hurt this much?

“Can you hear me? Flynn?”

Tentatively, he turned his head toward the voice - the familiar voice - the voice he hadn’t thought he’d ever hear again. There was Yuri, kneeling on the floor next to the bed. Flynn almost didn’t recognize him with such a serious and worried expression.

“…Yuri?”

A tiny smile and a nod. “Yeah, it’s me.”

But if Yuri was here… and if he was right…. _Safe. Home._ Flynn looked past Yuri at the peeling wallpaper and the dingy window clouded by frost. _Home_. “H-h-how?”

“We rescued you. The Committee doesn’t know where you are. You’re with us and you’re safe now.”

Flynn stare at Yuri. Safe. Safe? _Safe._ But how could he be safe when he still hurt so much? He’d been so looking forward to slipping into death and leaving this all behind, but now he had been thrust into a new situation that still hurt. He’d thought it was over but now it was going to keep going, and he didn’t know what was going to happen next.

“Whoa, hey!”

Flynn’s sudden sob startled Yuri. Everything was just too much and he didn’t even know why he was crying. It might have been relief and gratefulness and it might have been despair that he’d been denied the chance to die, or maybe some combination of that with added fear, confusion, and pain - the trifecta to which he’d grown accustomed. Yuri was speaking but Flynn didn’t listen. He let Yuri rub his arm and murmur words of encouragement and assurance. Flynn didn’t know how to deal with being rescued and for now sobbing was a good fall-back option.

His tears didn’t last too long, though. He’d been deprived water for too long to have enough moisture to keep them going (that wasn’t true; they gave him lots of water - too much - liquid poured down his throat until he thought he’d burst). When his eyes ran dry, he closed them and took deep, shuddering breaths.

“I’m - I’m - ok.”

“Are you sure?” Yuri asked (it was really Yuri! He was actually out!)

He wasn’t sure at all. “Maybe.”

“How do you feel?”

A torrent of words crossed his mind. He felt too much, and they were all negative. “I’m… I feel….” How could he even put it into words? How could Yuri ever understand everything that Flynn felt? “I’m just… _merde.”_

Yuri grimaced. “That bad, huh?”

“What day is it?” He needed to know how long it had been. A year? Five years? It felt like a lifetime.

“February twelfth. Or, uh… 20 Pluviôse, I think. I can never remember these dumb new months.”

February… three months…. “Is that all?”

“The important thing is that you’re back now.”

He was back… but what would happen next? Where did he go now? The future stretched before him, dark and empty. He couldn’t just come home and hop back onto the path he’d been on.

“It was Estelle’s idea. I won’t lie; I thought you were a goner, too. She was the one that insisted we try to find a way to get you out.”

Flynn’s brow creased at the mention of her name. Of course it had been her. He’d been so close to getting away from this world and she’d interfered.

“Why did you send her away?”

Anger flashed and almost engulfed all his other emotions. He pictured her face and couldn’t stop the tide of revulsion. His heart was speeding up again, too fast, this was too much. _Too much_. He couldn’t process rescue and Yuri and safe and over and Estelle and home. Stop thinking, stop thinking. Package it up and put it aside for later. Just calm down and _don’t think_.

Flynn whispered, “ _Sott'a lu ponte. Ci luce la luna…_.”

“What? Flynn, what about Estelle?”

Flynn gave a minute shake of his head and muttered, “I hate her.”

Yuri raised his eyebrows. “That’s a pretty far cry from how you talked about her a few months ago.”

Flynn glowered into the distance. “All of this was her fault.”

“Flynn.”

“If I’d never met her… if my professor had never dragged me to that accursed party… these past three months wouldn’t have happened.”

Yuri slowly shook his head. “You idiot. You can’t blame her for what the Jacobins did.”

“Why can’t I?” Flynn snarled. He lifted his hands and began to close his fingers, but the stabs of pain force him to drop his arms to his chest. “You would hate her, too, if your limbs were stretched until the joints cracked and you lay there for hours and hours just waiting to feel the first tear in the skin that would would mean they were being ripped from their sockets.” Flynn squeezed his fingers again, setting off the pain on purpose because it distracted him from the barrage of memories he’d summoned up. “And as you lay there waiting to be ripped in half - hoping it would happen soon so that at least it would be over - you knew that the only reason it was happening was because _someone else_ was sitting safely at home.” And he _let_ that happen to him… he chose to endure that because -

He hadn’t had a choice at all! It was Estelle! None of this would have happened if not for _her_!

His breath came heavily now, and he wished it would stop because his ribs had been broken, begun to heal, and broken again so many times that every breath burned. Yuri didn’t have an immediate answer for him, either. He was probably reeling from Flynn’s outburst, and Flynn almost felt guilty for dumping that description on him all at once. Almost. He was the one who’d had to live it - Yuri could handle just hearing about it. After Yuri’s continued silence, Flynn muttered, “What’s she ever done for me?”

“I don’t know,” Yuri said slowly. “You’re the one who fell for her. Why don’t you tell me?”

Flynn turned his head away. Had he really? That was stupid. How could he care for someone who’d caused him so much pain?

“Ok, answer me this, then: If you hate her so much, why didn’t you ever tell them where she was?”

Flynn stiffened. Why? What a question. Why? Why hadn’t he? He remembered all the times he’d been on the edge of spitting out the street name. He never had. Why not? _Why, why, why_? The question drummed against his head.

“I… because….” He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t answer the question and that meant Yuri was going to hurt him, because not answering questions always resulted in pain. Any second now it would come and prove him foolish for daring to believe he could actually be safe now. Flynn braced himself.

“ _In celu e stelle. Une manca manc'una. Dormi. Dormi. Dormi._ ”

Yuri sighed. “Close your eyes and try to rest. I’m going to do my best to patch you up.”

Estelle had stopped crying by the time Yuri returned from Flynn’s room. Of course, her tears hadn’t been helped by the fact that Yuri was up there for so long. She’d tried to convince herself that Flynn was just agitated and disoriented in general, but he didn’t seem to mind Yuri being up there. It was just her.

Yuri crossed the kitchen to stand over her and rest a hand on her shoulder. “How you doing?”

Estelle rubbed her eyes. “I’m ok. Well, I suppose I’m not, but… but I can’t really complain compared to Flynn. How is he?”

Yuri slid into a chair beside her. “All things considering, he’s all right. I patched him up as well as I could.”

“How are his legs? I didn’t even have time to look, but you said he couldn’t walk….”

Yuri pursed his lips. “Well… I’m no doctor so I can’t say for sure. His knees were swollen and covered in patchy bruises. I think there are some fractures in the bones. His feet are covered in scars; looked to me like burns.”

Estelle swallowed heavily and forced herself to listen. If Flynn had to live it, the least she could do was hear about it.

“He’s gonna live, Estelle. We got him out and we saved his neck.”

She forced herself to smile. “Yes…. I’m really happy that we saved him. But… did he mention me?”

Yuri nodded slowly, and Estelle could tell he was sorting through a conversation to figure out the kindest summary for her. “He isn’t actually mad at you, Estelle. Not really. Well, he _is_ , but….” Yuri put a hand on both her shoulders and met her eyes. “It’s not him. You need to understand that.”

Her eyebrows knit. “Of course it’s him, Yuri. Unless-” her face turned to shock, “you don’t think it’s an impostor?” She didn’t want to think she could be fooled, but prison had altered his appearance so harshly that it might be possible.

Yuri gave a quick shake of the head. “No, not like that. I mean… you understand that he was tortured?”

“Yes,” she said hesitantly. They had always known it was likely considering he hadn’t been put to a speedy trial and to the guillotine the next day like most prisoners, and after seeing his injuries there was little else she could assume.

“His brain’s a little scrambled right now, that’s all. People don’t think clearly in situations like that. They lose track of themselves. He was tortured because of you, Estelle, but that is _not_ your fault and once he’s had time to calm down a little, he’ll remember that, too.”

She stared at her hands. “I understand.”

“But he _never_ told them where you were. Remember that. No matter what they did to him, he never breathed a word about where you were hiding. That shows you how he really feels.”

Estelle took a deep breath. “Yes. Of course. I understand.” She scrubbed her eyes one last time and then stood up. “I’m going outside for a bit. Make sure you listen for Flynn if he calls. And.. Thank you, Yuri.” She hugged him quickly. “Thank you for being so kind and helpful since I got here, and thank you for rescuing him today.”

Yuri patted her arm. “Don’t mention it.”

Estelle left through the back door to sit in their tiny garden. Empty bottles and crumpled pieces of trash had been tossed over the wall and now lay on the barren ground. What a change from the gardens she had once strolled through with Flynn.

She sat on a lichen-encrusted stone bench. The winter breeze was cold, but she didn’t mind. The sharpness of each breath kept her alert. For months, she’d dreamed about Flynn returning to her arms and then everything would be ok again. Well, Flynn was back now, but he wasn’t in her arms. What was she supposed to do now? She’d been ready to spend every waking minute by his side until he recovered, but her mere presence caused him anxiety. It seemed the best way to help him was to stay away from him.

She could feel the tears welling up again and she stubbornly sniffed and rubbed her eyes. What good would crying do? She’d cried after Flynn kicked her out and it hadn’t made him go back to normal. She’d cried after he was arrested and it hadn’t brought him back. She’d cried when she watched Antoinette led to the guillotine, and it hadn’t affected her fate. Tears hadn’t done anything to hold together the tattered remnants of her old life. The only thing they accomplished was to summon a friend to hold and comfort her, but she was tired of being a burden. Especially now that Flynn was here. He was in so much pain and needed so much attention, and every time someone stopped to soothe her tears, they weren’t paying attention to Flynn, who needed it more. This, then, was something else she could do for him during her isolation: no more tears.

“I will not cry again,” she whispered into the cold air with a puff of breath. “At the very least, not until Flynn is well again. Not until I can make them tears of joy.”

* * *

 

**10 November, 1793**

Flynn had waited a full day and night before he found out what was to be done with him. From the market, Cumore had marched him across the river and to the foreboding towers of the Conciergerie. He’d heard the iron gates slam shut behind him, sealing him into his fate. He was taken downstairs, away from the common prisoners on the first floor, to the higher security cells in the dungeon underground. Flynn tried to look on the positives, such as he got a cell to himself instead of being cramped in with five others like the people above. When he surveyed the dark room lined in stone dampened by proximity to the Seine, and took in the pile of straw that was the closest excuse to a mattress and an old, chipped chamber pot that was on the only furniture, he did not see many other positives. He tried to find on in, _At least I won’t be here long_ , but that didn’t cheer him up as much as he might have hoped.

With nothing else to do. He sat on the straw and waited. In a way, he supposed it was nice to know for certain what his fate would be. Many prisoners probably stressed themselves to illness over the fear and uncertainty of being sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal. Those that still had hope could easily wear themselves out trying to find a way to explain how they were innocent. Flynn had no such illusions. Cumore had witnessed him helping Estelle escape, and his name had been on a list of royalist sympathizers for over a year. Taking him to trial would only be a formality. Robespierre would probably start sharpening the blade in giddy excitement himself when he heard who’d been caught. In some ways, knowing exactly what his future held was nicer than it still being uncertain, even if what it held was death.

Flynn spent the rest of the day waiting for his day in court. Since it would be such a quick affair, he’d figured they would squeeze it in as soon as possible. He’d really rather get it over with. However, nobody came for him. A jailer brought him a thin soup in the evening, but offered no word of when he could expect to see court. Flynn half-heartedly stirred a few chunks of potato around the bowl. It was amazing how imminent death could dampen an appetite.

He wondered at possibilities of sending a message to Estelle without revealing to the jailers where she was. The image that kept coming back to his mind was of her sleepy face as he said goodbye and promised to be back by noon, and then his imagination supplied the despair on that face when Judith arrived home to inform everyone what had happened. He had been stupid, so stupid, to try to intervene on behalf of that woman. At the same time, he couldn’t even say he completely regretted it. She may have been unpleasant to him, but she didn’t deserve to die. He had saved her from the fate that now befell him, and he supposed that if he were going to die, it would be nice to know that at least he went out protecting an innocent.

It wasn’t until after a restless sleep and then another prolonged morning of waiting that someone finally came to his cell. To his displeasure, it was Cumore. Flynn stood, ignoring the cavernous ache in his stomach. He hadn’t been given breakfast. A couple of lackeys accompanied Cumore, who was now unlocking the iron bars of the cell. Flynn stepped out when the door opened, and though he was prepared to go quietly rather than make a scene, the lackeys grabbed his arms.

“Good morning, Scifo. I trust you slept well?”

“The straw was sufficient, thank you.”

“Wonderful. Now, perhaps you can answer a question: where is Princess Estelle?”

Flynn’s face remained wooden. “I don’t know.”

“Please. You were seen escorting her from the palace. Where did you take her?”

“I took her to the edge of the city. She left on her own. She could be in Spain by now for all I know. Or England, or Austria. I have no idea.”

“That useless girl? Travelling alone with no resources or money? I doubt it. Where have you hidden her?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t hide her anywhere.”

“Come now. What possible reason could you have for shielding that princess?”

Estelle was kind. She was thoughtful. She was filled with infectious enthusiasm. Unlike Yuri, she could share her opinions on Rousseau and Montesquieu and unlike his acquaintances from university, she didn’t look down on him for having an empty bank account. “She was my… friend. But she’s gone now, and I don’t know where she went.”

“Very well. I suppose this smelly hallway isn’t conducive to a proper chat anyway. Come with me.”

They started walking, but not toward the stars that would lead out of the dungeon and toward a trial. He was taken deeper into the prison, along a dark hallway lined with cells. Most of them were occupied, since all the prisons of Paris were overflowing these days, but most of the occupants were asleep - or passed-out, which was not the same as falling asleep at all. A thick wooden door stood at the end of the corridor and Flynn felt a pit in his stomach as it was pushed open. Overnight, his sense of smell had been dampened after long assault by the prison’s foul odours, but a fresh attack hit him now, bring the reek of blood, iron, and leather.

Cumore lit a torch on the wall which illuminated the room. Flynn was disheartened - but not surprised - to see that it was a chamber of interrogation. There was another word that he could have used for the room and the handful of terrifying devices it contained, but he wasn’t ready to think it yet.

“We’ll resume the questioning in here. Do you recall where the princess is?”

Flynn swallowed heavily. “I don’t.”

“Very well.” He waved his hand and gestured to a wooden pillar in the middle of the room.

The guards pulled Flynn across the room. A primal part of his mind wanted to resist - to fight back, pull away from the guards, and make a run for it. Reason, though, won out. It was hardly possible to run out of the Conciergerie, and he’d only be punished worse after being recaptured. Besides, he didn’t want to give Cumore that satisfaction. So instead he walked forward without resistance, and stood still as his shirt was stripped off and thrown aside. Iron shackles dangled from the top of the pillar and these were clamps around his wrists, forcing him to stand on his toes with his chest pressed against the rough wood. Briefly, he worried about getting a splinter. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the guards carrying a whip, and he pressed his forehead against the damp wood resignedly.

“Here’s the interesting thing, Scifo.” Cumore strolled around to stand just ahead of Flynn on his right, with his hands folded behind his back. “While you are a most traitorous enemy of the revolution, I discussed your case with Monsieur Robespierre yesterday. He has agreed that while you must be put to death for your crimes, it is also important that we round up the final member of the royal family, for she also must pay for her crimes.”

“What crimes could you possibly accuse Estelle of?” Flynn demanded.

“Living off the sweat of the common man, of course. All the royals are guilty of abusing the common folk.”

This was quite rich coming from Cumore, who Flynn knew to be so wealthy that he might as well be an aristocrat. Cumore had no noble title - a fact that had served him quite well under their new government - but he’d abused, mistreated, and taken advantage of more ‘common men’ than Estelle had met in her life.

“And besides,” Cumore continued, “we cannot risk her fleeing the country and leading an attack on France with her filthy German web of relatives.”

Flynn tried to imagine Estelle leading an army and almost found the mirth to laugh.

“Therefore, it is of prime importance that we find and recover the missing princess. In that light, Robespierre has agreed that your trial can be postponed until such time that you provide the information we need. So, what can you tell us about her location?”

“It seems to me that you didn’t think through your bargaining. If I tell you where she is, I’ll be executed the next day. As long as I don’t tell you, I’ll continue to live. One of those options looks significantly better to me, and it’s not the one that helps you.”

Cumore smiled at him. “In time, you will come to reconsider the pros and cons of prolonging your life. Let’s begin with ten lashes and see if that jogs his memory.”


	3. But Still So Far Away

**12 February, 1794**

It was so strange to lie in a bed this soft. Three months on a cold floor with a little bit of straw for warmth and comfort made returning to a bed with a blanket feel alien. Flynn almost wanted to move to the floor just for some familiarity, but he didn’t think he could move that far on his own. He wondered if he was dreaming. Finding himself in his old bed after a miraculous rescue had certainly been the subject of many dreams during his incarceration, but they usually weren’t this painful.

Flynn had lain here for the entire afternoon and into the night. He drifted in and out of sleep, and every time he awoke he had to remember where he was again. He was awake now, staring at the low ceiling. He wanted to roll over and take the pressure off the lashed crisscrossing his back, but he knew twisting onto his side would put even more painful pressure on his shoulder, even after the pain in his ribs from moving. It was a wonder he could even still use his limbs, since he’d been sure they had been close to being ripped from their sockets. There wasn’t an inch of his body that didn’t hurt, and had hurt for weeks - months, even.

He had so been looking forward to death. A few days ago, Cumore told him that Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, had grown weary of waiting for information from him. After a solid three months of enhanced interrogation, Flynn hadn’t budged an inch in his statement that he had no idea where Princess Estelle was. It was claimed that they could now trust his word, since any man would have cracked under the pressure so clearly he didn’t actually know anything, but Flynn suspected they were trying to save face. They must have realized they weren’t going to get anything out of him, and it was better to say the torture had successfully clarified the truth than to admit they were unable to break him.

In any case, he’d been carried before the tribunal. They had offered him legal counsel, an offer at which Flynn had laughed. As if being represented by a lawyer would change anything. He hadn’t finished his own schooling before the revolution forced him into hiding, but he’d assured them he could provide his own legal defence as well as anyone else. Besides, he didn’t want them to have the pleasure of giving him a lawyer and masquerading as if they had a legitimate judicial process.

It was a testament to what a special case he was that he faced the tribunal alone, rather than in a group of related cases so they could all be tried together. His knees were so swollen and strained that they couldn’t hold his weight, even without the fractures in his legs, so he’d been held up with his aching arms wrapped around the shoulders of a pair of guards.

At least the trial had been short. Flynn hadn’t strained himself trying to argue in his defence, since he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. When it had been announced that he was found guilty and would be executed the next morning, Flynn had closed his eyes and hung his head in relief. Finally, it would be over. No more pain, nor more stress, no more worrying, no more hunger, or cold, discomfort, or new wounds to add to the old. It would all end and he would be free.

But it hadn’t ended. He was still alive and still in pain. He had no illusions that his torn muscles and damaged tendons would ever return to full functionality, so his future held nothing but a crippled life in hiding. He still had to worry, only now he also had to worry that he’d be traced back to Rue du Ciel and his friends would be brought to the Conciergerie with them the next time. It probably would have been better if they’d just let him die in peace.

And who did he have to thank for his prolonged suffering? Yuri had said it himself: this was Estelle’s idea. Hatred rushed through him when he thought of her. Of course it was her fault. This was _all_ her fault. If it hadn’t been for Estelle, he’d be finishing university now, possibly working as a public defender on the off-chance he could help some other poor sap dragged before the tribunal. Estelle was just another stupid, useless royal who flit through life on the backs of the lower classes. Just like everyone else in her family enjoyed a stress-free life at the expense of their people, she was still safe and healthy because of his sacrifice. What had she ever done to deserve it?

Yuri arrived in the room that evening, when the sky began to darken. He carried a tray with a bowl of soup and a few pieces of bread. “Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

Yuri helped him sit up. Flynn winced and groaned as his aching muscles were pulled into an upright position, and he wondered if eating was worth the discomfort of leaning back against the brass bars of the headboard. It wasn’t like going days without food was abnormal for him.

“I can’t stay for too long,” Yuri said. “I need to get back to La Comète. Karol is here if you need anything, though Estelle would like to help, too.”

Flynn scowled and looked away.

“She wants to help you, if you allow her.”

“She’s never done anything for me before,” Flynn muttered. “Why should she start now?”

“You still haven’t answered my question. If you hate her so much, why didn’t you sell her out to the Jacobins?”

Flynn kept his eyes on the wall. This stupid question. He didn’t need to answer it.

“Tell me why, Flynn.”

“They were torturing me,” Flynn told the wall. He’d been thinking about this and preparing himself for the next time the question was asked. There was nothing worse than not having an answer to a question. Yuri hadn’t hurt him the last time he hadn’t answered, but then, Cumore hadn’t hurt him the first couple of times, either. “They tortured me because I wouldn’t tell them. If I caved and gave them the answer anyway, it would mean I had been tortured for no reason.”

“Ok… but why didn’t you just tell them in the first place? Before they started torturing you. I mean, if you hate her so much, you should have jumped at the opportunity to sell her out.”

What a stupid question! He didn’t need to answer that. He wasn’t supposed to tell and it was as simple as that. Why was Yuri pestering him about this, anyway? Yuri was supposed to be his friend. Why was Yuri taking _her_ side? Was he not a _sans-culotte -_ a poor commoner who’d supported getting rid of the monarchy? Maybe _he_ was the one that should have been arrested. Then _he_ could have spent three months wondering how far you could break a human body before it stopped being able to heal.

“Why did you rescue her in the first place? Think, Flynn. _Why_ did you rescue her?”

This was stupid. He didn’t want to think about this. Yuri shouldn’t be pressing him about it in the first place. He picked up the spoon, then let it clatter against the porcelain when the pain throbbed through his hand.

_Iron clamped around his fingers, squeezing them tighter with every turn of the screw. The skin had already broken - the iron bit into bone. Where is Estelle? They never stopped asking. Flynn’s lip bled from how fiercely his teeth dug into it. Where is Estelle? Rue du Ciel. The words hovered in his mind as he heard the bone begin to crack. Estelle. Estelle. Estelle. Where is she? Stop asking about her. Stop talking about her. Where is Estelle? He never wanted to hear her name again. Blood ran in rivulets down -_

“Flynn?”

“ _In li castagni_ ,” Flynn mumbled. “ _Si lagna_ -”

Fingers snapped in front of his eyes and Flynn startled. “Are you still with me?”

Flynn took a sharp breath and realized he was staring at his trembling hand. “Sorry.”

“Can you lift the spoon? I can help if you-”

“I don’t need you to feed me.” He wasn’t helpless. Anymore. “Go back to La Comète. I don’t need to be supervised while eating.”

Yuri watched him for a few long seconds. “Ok. I’ll be back later.”

La Comète did good business and consistently put food on their table. That evening, Judith and Rita were busy at the front of the house taking care of orders and wrangling the lively crowd, while Yuri and Estelle worked in the kitchen. Yuri had sent Karol to the house to mind Flynn, since he was less likely to freak Flynn out.

Last year, before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been killed, before the Committee of Public Safety took power, before the whole city began holding its breath waiting for their turn to be executed, he and Estelle had actually had fun in the kitchen. Estelle’s experience with food in the past had been lavishly prepared dishes emerging on silver platters as if by magic, and she had been thrilled to learn how to actually prepare food. Yuri couldn’t make anything as elaborate or rich as the food she’d enjoyed at Versailles, but she was impressed enough by poached eggs or mutton chops.

The kitchen was more subdued these days. Yuri knew Estelle longed to be out front interacting with people with Rita with Judith, but they all agreed it was too dangerous. It was unlikely anyone would recognize her as the princess in her shabby clothes, but they couldn’t take the risk. This evening, she silently chopped parsnips while Yuri busied himself with a bechamel sauce on the stove.

“Did Flynn say anything about me?” she asked with her back to him.

Yuri stared into the thick, bubbling milk. “A little bit.”

“It’s ok, Yuri. You can tell me.”

Yuri watched the sauce swirl around the bowl. He didn’t want to lie to her, but that didn’t mean he had to quote Flynn’s exact words. “I asked him why he protected you in the first place if he didn’t like you. He was pretty confused at that.”

“Confused?”

“He wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t meet my eyes. The answer’s that he loves you, of course, but I think his brain’s so cloudy he doesn’t remember that.” Yuri left his sauce to simmer and crossed the kitchen to inspect Estelle’s parsnips.

“Then I think,” Estelle set her knife down, “what we need to do is help him remember. Do you think that would work? If we told him stories about his past and helped him remember who he was before this happened?”

“Heh. Of course you’d suggest solving this with stories.”

Her fists landed on her hips. “I think it would work!”

Yuri shrugged. “Might as well give it a try. The problem is that you’re the one who knows the most important stories, but I don’t think he wants to listen to you.”

“Well, then I’ll just have to tell them to you first and then you can talk to Flynn for me.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Hours later, when the kitchen was closed and Yuri left Judith and Rita to deal with the last drinkers, Yuri slipped into his room. Karol was already asleep in the double bed on the right, but Flynn looked up when Yuri entered. His face showed fright from the sudden appearance of someone in his bedroom, but he quickly relaxed when he saw it was Yuri.

“Can’t sleep?” Yuri asked. He spoke softly, even though he knew Karol could probably sleep through a barrage of cannons.

“I’ve been napping all day.”

Yuri lowered himself onto the stool by the bed. “Want me to keep you company?”

“You don’t have to. I’m fine.”

Yuri stretched out his legs. “I’m not quite tired yet. How about I tell you a little bedtime story?”

* * *

 

**27 July, 1788**

The first time Estelle met Flynn, the circumstances of both of their lives were considerably different. It was a warm summer night and Estelle drifted through the ballroom, absently humming along to the orchestra. The many layers and ruffles of her pale blue gown swished around her feet.

There were many parties here at Versailles, and after living here for less than a year, she felt she’d already tired of them. All around her, aristocrats in powdered wigs sipped wine as they laughed and enjoyed themselves. The stuffiness of the ball room and the overwhelming scent of of wine was giving her a headache, and she was counting down the minutes until it would be an acceptable time to slip away to her bed chambers, take off this stiff dress, and get back to the book she’d been reading all day. The main character had been about to set off on a journey, and she was keen to find out how it went.

“Estelle!”

She turned when she heard her name. A cluster of men in vibrantly coloured coats, their cheeks pink both from the wine and from paint, parted so that a woman in a dress twice as wide as her body could come through. Her hair towered over her head like a columnar cloud and her arms were outstretched in greeting. “ _Guten Abend, liebchen_ ,” Estelle’s aunt said as she took her hands. “How are you tonight?”

Estelle put on a smile for Marie Antoinette. Even though it was King Louis XVI Estelle was related to, she’d always felt closer to his wife. For one, they shared the same native language, though they nearly always spoke French unless in private. “I am doing well, thank you. Your dress is beautiful.”

Antoinette ran her hands down her skirt and folded the ruffles. “Isn’t it? It’s like something from a beautiful doll. Yours is lovely too, _ma cheri_. But look at you!” She gently patted Estelle’s cheek. “You’re young and beautiful in the prime of your life; why is there no handsome young man to dance with you?”

Estelle pulled her shoulders in and fumbled for an answer. “Um, well, I just haven’t… there aren’t any….”

“Come.” Antoinette took her wrist and guided the girl through the throng of revellers. “You should be enjoying your youth. I was already married at your age.”

“I know. My father was in talks with the King of Saxony about one of his sons, but… then he passed away and it sort of fell through….”

Antoinette patted her hand. “Don’t worry, dear. My husband will find a place for you, I’m sure.” They passed a table, its edges carved in curlicues covered in gold-leaf. Upon it were platters of miniature cakes and sugared fruits. “Have you tried one of these?” She picked up a tiny chocolate cupcake and handed it to Estelle. “They’re simply divine.”

Estelle took it hesitantly. She was still full from the piles of courses they’d had for dinner earlier.

“Do go on,” Antoinette said after eating a chocolate strawberry. “You didn’t have _that_ much to eat at dinner; I was watching. Let yourself eat cake.”

Estelle smiled a little and popped it into her mouth. When she bit through, cream burst from the pastry and filled her mouth. Her eyes widened and Antoinette beamed at Estelle’s surprised and pleased face. After swallowing, she said, “That was delicious; what was in the cream?”

Antoinette winked and clapped Estelle on the shoulder. “A little sherry. Can you feel it?”

Estelle wiped crumbs from her mouth with a cloth napkin from the table and giggled. “I don’t think one cupcake is enough to get me tipsy.”

“Darn. You’ll have to rely on your own courage for this next part then.”

“Huh - what?”

Antoinette took her wrist and dragged her away from the table until they stopped near the wall. “There, look.”

Estelle looked. “The fat man with his coattail stuck in his waistband?”

“No, no, wait for him to move.” She waved her hand to psychically compel him to move. He actually did a few seconds later, revealing a young man lurking by the wall with a barely-touched flute of champagne in hand. He stood out to Estelle by how very plain he was, which clashed with the wall behind him that was white and covered in shining golden moulding, all the way up to the mural of angels that covered the ceiling. Hw wore simple black shoes, white stockings to his knees, navy blue breeches with a matching frock coat trimmed in silver, and a waistcoat of pale yellow. A powdered white wig sat on his head with a short ponytail at the back, but it sat crooked and a few sections of natural blond poked out behind his ears.

“Who is that?” Estelle asked.

“I asked around. He’s a _commoner_ ,” Antoinette said, like she was naming an exotic fruit. “And a foreigner too, I hear. I was speaking with Lord Chauvet, who lectures at the university and apparently he’s from an exceptionally wealthy family and is the premier student in his class. Chauvet’s son is in Marseilles, so he brought his student in his stead.”

“Um… and why are you pointing him out to me?”

“Because! I’m married, but you are young and full of beauty and youth. Go seduce him with your feminine wiles and dance the night away.”

“But, well, he’s a commoner so even if I did like him, it’s not like I could actually be in a relationship with him.”

“So? I’m not saying to marry him, just go! Enjoy the night, and if you like him, I can invite him to the next one. It’s just for fun, _liebchen_. Go on.” Before Estelle could protest further, Antoinette shoved her in the small of her back and sent her stumbling toward the young man.

She almost crashed into him, but he caught her arm and helped her stabilizing herself. “Whoa, careful,” he said.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to; it was my aunt, she….” She looked over her shoulder, but Antoinette had already vanished back into the crow. Estelle sighed. “ _Bonsoir_ , it’s nice to meet you. My name is Estelle Sidos of Heurassein.”

The young man smile and set his untouched glass on a spindly table behind him. “Good evening to you as well. I’m Flynn Scifo.”

“Scifo….” Estelle recalled Antoinette saying the guest was a foreigner. “That sounds Italian.”

“Good ear. I’m originally from Corsica.”

“Ah, so you’re not foreign after all, since Corsica is part of France.”

Flynn’s face stiffened. “We were still independent when I was born.”

“Oops, I’m sorry. You speak French very well, though. You barely have an accent.”

His face returned to a smile. “Thank you. I’ve been in Paris since I was a child, so I’d like to think I’ve grown accustomed to the language. What about yourself? Your accent is… Austrian? Like the queen?”

Estelle shook her head. “No, but very close. I grew up in the Principality of Heurassein, which is near Saxony. Although… it was absorbed into Schwarzburg-Rudelstadt after my father passed away last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes….” Estelle tried to direct the conversation back to more cheerful topics. “But I’ve really enjoyed my time at Versailles. Is this your first time at the palace?”

“It is. I was incredibly honoured when Lord Chauvet invited me.” He craned his neck to examine the angels painted above him. “It’s the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen.”

“Have you seen the gardens yet?”

“I haven’t, but I’ve heard they’re breathtaking.”

“Come with me! I’ll show you. I think they’re my favourite part of the palace.” At the very least, it would be a chance to get out of this stifling ballroom. Flynn walked by Estelle’s side as they crossed the room, though not too close because her skirt was so wide. As they were leaving, Estelle noticed Antoinette watching her from near the orchestra. When their eyes met, Antoinette smiled and gave her a tiny thumbs-up. It was a short walk through the gilded halls to the gardens, and after a courtier opened the door for them, Flynn stopped just outside and gazed across the immaculate garden in wonder. White paths swirled through carefully trimmed grass, lined in hedges and tiny lanterns. The nearest of the many fountains was illuminated by light seeping from the windows of the palace and filled the air with the tinkling of water.

“Its beautiful, isn’t it?” Estelle asked.

Flynn nodded. “I’ve never seen nature more beautiful in Paris.”

Estelle reached out and tugged his elbow, which wasn’t entirely proper but there was no one to reprimand her out here. She led him onto the main path leading toward the fountain and breathed in the warm night air. Crickets chirped and music from the ballroom drifted across the garden, which covered an area greater than the palace itself. “The gardens are my favourite part of Versailles. I do miss the castle I grew up in sometimes, but we didn’t have anything like this back home. I like to stroll along the paths in the evening, or sit by a fountain and read a book on warm spring days.”

“I can see why. Perhaps I’d enjoy studying more if I had such a nice place to do it.”

“I heard your family is wealthy. What is it like where you live?” Estelle had had very little experience talking to commoners. She’d grown up in a protective bubble in her own castle, and Versailles was merely a more elaborately gilt bubble. If Flynn was at this party, she knew he couldn’t be a normal commoner like the peasants Antoinette was so enamoured by, but almost everyone she talked to were either servants or had titles longer than their names.

“Ah… it would be more accurate to say my family _was_ wealthy. My father was a prominent member of the diet - the parliament of Corsica - but everything fell apart after France took over. He lost a lot of business deals and such. After he died, my mother and I moved to Paris and lived on the remaining fortune… and after she died, I realized she’d nearly exhausted it. And now I’m spending far too much on university, I think,” he said with little chuckle.

“Education is never a waste, I think. What are you studying?” They turned down another path, taking them away from the glittering fountain and beneath neatly trimmed trees.

“Law. I intend to become a lawyer, although I’ve also been attending lectures on literature and philosophy. Have you read anything by Voltaire or Rousseau?”

“Oh, yes! I’ve read just about every book I can get my hands on.” She smiled sheepishly and wondered if she should have admitted that. “My uncle says it isn’t ladylike.”

“Nonsense. If you like to read, you should pursue it. Like you said, education is never a waste. What do you think about Rousseau?”

“His ideas are interesting. I do like to think that humans, in their natural state, are not inherently evil - that it’s the influence of society that brings out the worst in us. It reminded me of the story of Adam and Eve, and how they were innocent until eating the fruit, like how Rousseau proposed humans are naturally innocent and free until taking part in society.”

“That’s an interesting interpretation. I hadn’t made that connection. You’re right, I do like his optimism about the nature of humanity, but what he says about dictatorship I find disconcerting.”

“You mean when he wrote that sometimes a dictator is necessary?” Estelle had been forced into this conversation by Antoinette, but now she could hardly keep herself from gushing her thoughts to Flynn. Nobody else in the palace had any strong interest in literature and if she ever tried to bring it up, she was invariably told she shouldn’t worry about such things.

“Yes, that part. He said that in dire situations, laws might be suspended for safety of the greater good. But, I disagree. I think that dire situations are when laws are needed _most_. It’s too easy to give in to panic, greed, and paranoia when you’re under stress. Without an established legal framework, which clearly limits what those in power can and cannot do, the dictator will surely become an even worse threat to safety than what he was put in power to control.”

“I think you’re right. I mean, look what happened with Julius Ceasar. They made him a dictator temporarily for a crisis, and then he went and made himself emperor.” Estelle’s mind buzzed with energy like a bear waking from slumber. After spending a year drifting from one elaborate ball to the next and having no conversations deeper than which wine she preferred with dinner, this casual walk had become invigorating. She would have to tell Antoinette to invite Flynn to future parties. He may not be a noble, but if his father had been part of the government in Corsica, she figured that was very nearly good enough to justify his presence.

“Yes, exactly.” Flynn was nodding quickly. “Civilized society needs laws to remain structured. Have you by chance read anything by John Locke?”

Estelle shook her head. “I haven’t. He’s English, isn’t he?”

“He is. I read the French translation of his _Two Treatises of Government_ , but unfortunately only the second treatise was translated.” He rubbed his chin and added, “So I suppose it’s more of _A Singular Treatise of Government_. I’ve always been interested to find a translation of the first one, if it exists.”

“Hmmm….” Estelle cocked her head to the side, thinking. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, but perhaps it’s out there somewhere. If you find a copy of the original English version, though, I might be able to help. My English isn’t perfect, but I could get the general idea of it.”

“Really? You would help me like that?”

“Sure!” She beamed at him. “I’d be interested to read it, too.” They paused beside rows and rows of tulips to appreciate the carpet of flowers. “Do you read anything for fun, or is it just philosophical essays?”

Flynn laughed. “No, I read things for fun as well. Recently I read a book about a man who travelled through time to the year 2440.”

“Oh, I’ve read that, too! It was so interesting.” Estelle gazed across the flowers with dreamy eyes as she imagined the distant future, filled with flying machines and marvellous technology.

“That hardly surprises me. It seems like you’ve read half the books published in France.”

Estelle pouted. “That’s not true. In fact, there’s a book I want to read but I can’t get my hands on a copy.” She looked away from the tulips and turned her gaze back to the palace behind them. “I overheard some members of the court talking about it, but I asked my uncle and he said I was forbidden from reading it.” Which of course had only furthered her curiosity more and now she was more determined than ever to find a copy.

“Which book?”

“It’s called _Les bijoux indiscrets_.”

Flynn’s cheerful face when rigid.

“Have you read it?” Estelle asked.

Suddenly the starched collar of Flynn’s shirt seemed to become very tight around his neck as he fiddled with it. “I have….”

“Really? What’s it about?” That was the most frustrating part of all. It was always mentioned in hushed tones and nobody talked about what actually happened in the book.

Flynn coughed and cleared his throat. “It’s… um… a political satire about King Louis XV….”

“I know _that_ , but what about him?”

“Well, he… that is, the fictional sultan that stands in for him, finds a magic ring that lets him turn invisible among other things.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really? That sounds very interesting. What other things does the ring do?”

Flynn took a deep breath and then spoke very quickly. “It enables people in the vicinity of its use to know about a woman’s past amorous experiences; why are you so interested?”

Clearly the subject made Flynn uncomfortable and it clicked in Estelle’s mind that this was a sex thing. She found herself more interested than ever before, but took pity on Flynn and his attempt to change the subject. “I just wanted to know, because I heard it was about my great-grandfather and I never met him.”

Flynn frowned. “Your great-grandfather? But it’s about… your great-grandfather is King Louis XV?!”

“Yes. Didn’t you know?”

Flynn took a slight step backward. “I - I apologize. I had no idea you were a member of the royal family. I thought… a distant relation or perhaps your parents had connections….”

“I’m sorry; I should have said. My mother was Princess Marie Zéphyrine, older sister of the king.”

Flynn bowed. “I apologize if I was overly familiar. I didn’t realize you were so high ranked. I never dreamed a member of the royal family would speak to me.”

Estelle grabbed his biceps and pulled him up. “No, please, you don’t have to bow. I was really happy to talk to someone who wasn’t bowing every other sentence.”

Flynn straightened up, but he looked ready to bow again at the slightest provocation.

“Really, it’s ok,” Estelle insisted. “I really enjoyed talking with you about books. Please don’t feel like you can’t talk normally to me anymore. Look, there are still so many paths through the gardens. Tell me more about the books you’ve read and what university is like and about your life in the city.”

Flynn looked toward the palace. “Will you be missed if you’re away this long?”

“I don’t think so. My aunt is the one that told me to talk to you in the first place.”

“Your aunt. The queen.” Flynn seemed rather dazed by her close connection to the most powerful people in the country. “Very well. I would enjoy walking with you for a little longer.”

“Good, because there are some beautiful lilies further in.” Estelle gave a silent forgiveness to Antoinette for shoving her into this conversation and cheerfully babbled about books she’d read as she guided Flynn deeper into the garden.

* * *

 

**13 February, 1794**

Flynn lay awake, listening to Karol snore. Yuri had gone to bed hours ago, having finished his story and calling it a night. Flynn wanted to punch him, but lacked the strength in his arms. It was manipulative and cruel to try to twist his heart with a story of the past. He was certain Yuri was making parts of it up.

And now it was night. The rest of the house was asleep. Flynn had been telling the truth about napping throughout the day, but he was still tired. He just didn’t want to fall asleep because he knew he would have nightmares. He’d had nightmares almost every night in the Conciergerie and a few of his long naps this afternoon had hosted them as well. For the first time in months, he didn't have the knowledge that torture awaited him in the morning, so putting himself through sleep and no-doubt suffering torture there was an unpleasant prospect.

But at the same time, sleep was so tempting. If he fell unconscious, he could stop feeling the aches from all over his body. He could stop flinching at every sound and wondering if it was the Committee of General Security here to take him back to prison. It would be so nice to sleep and leave this world for a little while, since he’d been denied the opportunity to leave it for good this morning.

And then he thought - _what if I’m dreaming right now?_ What if he fell asleep and woke up back in the dungeon to feel hands grabbing him (always grabbing him; he wasn’t going to run anywhere so why did they always have to touch him?) and taking him off to the execution. Even worse, what if the tribunal had been a dream, too? What if _all_ of it was a dream and tomorrow would hold nothing but the rack for hours and hours until he thought he’d be ripped in half?

Fear gripped him. What if none of this was real? Karol snored on the other side of the room. That meant this was real, right? Although, he’d grown used to falling asleep to the snores and sobs of people in surrounding cells. This could all just be a hallucination. He had to move. He needed to stand on the wooden floors, touch the cold glass window, feel the reality of the house. Flynn began to shift toward the edge of the bed, but when he started to edge his left leg over the side, pain gripped his knee. His breath caught in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut. He grabbed his leg with his mangled hands and pulled the weak and unresponsive limb back onto the mattress. His hands ached - his knee throbbed - tears filled his eyes and he couldn’t stop hearing Cumore’s voice shouting Estelle’s name over and over.

“ _S-s-s-so tanti mesi_ ,” his whispered to himself. He’d finally moved off his back and onto his side, and as expected, it hurt. Everything hurt. He knew he shouldn’t be here because nothing so mangled ought to go back to real life. “ _Che no simu soli_.”

A soft voice crossed the darkness. “Are you all right, Flynn?”

It startled him and he pulled his blanket over his face like a rabbit retreating into a hole. It took a few seconds to realize it had just been Yuri (and not someone here to drag him to that room where the walls oozed river slime and swallowed his screams). “I’m fine.”

“I can sit up with you until you fall asleep, if you want.”

“No.” That would be pathetic. Like when he was a little boy and his mother sang him to sleep with a lullaby and soft strokes of his hair. So weak. Just like Cumore insisted and like Flynn refused to be. “I’m going to sleep.”

“I’m here if you need anything.”

Flynn clamped his eyes shut. No more talking about this. “ _Bonne nuit_.”


	4. Tales From Days Gone By

**11 August, 1788**

The night after Estelle met Flynn, Antoinette demanded to know all the details. Estelle described their walk through the garden and their long discussion of books and philosophy, and she caught herself getting dreamy as she described him. Antoinette had smiled and assured her she’d invite this foreign commoner to the next party, just for her.

Estelle didn’t have to wait long to see Flynn again. Antoinette threw parties whenever the whim struck her, so only two weeks later Estelle found herself anxiously searching the ballroom for a familiar ill-fitting wig. She finally spotted him lurking in a corner and wasted no time in closing the distance between them.

“ _Bonsoir!_ ” She had to stop herself from grabbing his hands as soon as she got close. “I’m so happy to see you again.”

Flynn smiled, gently took her wrist, and kissed the back of her hand. “Good evening, _Votre Altesse_. I couldn’t believe it when Lord Chauvet told me I had been personally invited by the queen.” He shook his head with his eyes closed. “Seems unimaginable.”

“Heh, well, I might have mentioned I’d like to see you again.” She folded her hands together and shifted her feet, her skirt and its heavy supporting structure of petticoats swaying.

“I’m afraid you’ve invited me back too soon.” He rubbed the side of his neck. “I haven’t read any new books to discuss.”

“That’s ok.” Violins resounded through the great room as the orchestra began another song. “I learned how to say something in Italian. Um, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing it right, but… _vuole ballare con me?_ ”

Flynn’s smile turned into a cheek-to-cheek grin. “You said that wonderfully, and I would love to dance with you.” He held out his hand. “My lady?”

Estelle placed hers in his and let him lead her away from the wall. Flynn was wearing the same outfit he’d worn the last time, and she could tell he wasn’t comfortable wearing a wig. He was clearly out of place in the extravagant balls of Versailles, but it didn’t show in his dancing. While a harpsichord set the melody, they joined the moving crowd in the middle of the room as they circled their partners. Unlike their stroll through the garden, many eyes were upon them inside the ballroom, so they maintained a respectful distance from each other. They only time they touched was when they put their hands together as part of a skip and a spin, or when Estelle twirled beneath his arm. This part was difficult, since her skirt was so wide, but Flynn didn’t seem to mind being whacked with heavy fabric as she spun. Their heels clicked on the polished floor and the orchestra swept over them to fill the vast hall. A dozen crystal chandeliers were suspends from above, and their points of light glittered in Flynn’s eyes, which Estelle kept catching herself staring into.

“Is this how they dance in Corsica?” she asked as she passed him in a choreographed circle.

“I wouldn’t know, actually. I left when I was about ten years old, and I haven’t been back.”

“What is it like? I’ve never been so far south. Is it very different from Paris?”

Flynn’s eyes drifted and he nearly stumbled the next step of the dance as he was caught in recollection. “It’s much warmer. It never snows, and in the summer I liked to walk on the beach in my bare feet and feel the warm sand on my toes. You can sit under a chestnut tree and watch the waves roll in from the turquoise sea.”

The words painted a picture in Estelle’s mind and now it was her turn to miss a beat. “Wow… it sounds beautiful.”

“It is. Perhaps you’ll have a chance to visit someday.”

“That would be wonderful. I’ve only ever seen Paris, central Germany, and the carriage ride in between. I’ve never even seen the ocean.”

“I’m sure you will someday,”

She did another twirl beneath his arm and ended face-to-face. “You think so?”

“Sure. With your tenacity in hunting down so many books to read, I’m certain you’ll find your way to the sea eventually. When you do, the wait will make it even more beautiful.”

“I really hope so.” She curled her fingers around his. Through her gloves, she felt his warmth and strength. They paused in a break in the music and Estelle once again found herself staring into his bright blue eyes. Maybe it would be a long time before she got to see the ocean, but for now, this was good enough.

* * *

 

**20 February, 1794**

Yuri dabbed soap over Flynn’s cheeks. Though Judith had given Flynn a haircut shortly after he arrived, they’d been waiting for the bruises on Flynn’s face to fade before taking a blade to them. He sat upright in bed, a grubby towel around his shoulders, and his eyes closed. Perhaps he was trying to block out Yuri’s words as Yuri told him about dancing with Estelle and the joy they’d had together, or perhaps he didn’t want to watch a blade come near his throat, no matter whose hand it was in. Yuri spoke in a slow, soothing voice as he scraped away Flynn’s messy beard. He hoped that being clean-shaved again would help Flynn feel more like himself.

When Yuri finished talking, Flynn sat silently. Yuri carefully manoeuvred the razor under his bottom lip, frowning at the blood smeared beneath it. The lip had been split when he arrived, but he kept catching Flynn chewing on it and starting the healing process all over again.

“Why don’t you tell me about important things?” Flynn asked when the razor had moved on to his other cheek.

Yuri pulled the razor back quickly, surprised by the sudden words. “Like what?”

“Like…. Current events. How things are going for France.” Flynn finally opened his eyes. “I haven’t heard any news since November.”

“Uh… do you want good news or bad news?” Yuri resumed while he spoke.

“Is there any good news?”

Yuri tried to think of something. “I guess that depends on whose side you’re on.”

Flynn closed his eyes again. “Tell me the bed news then. I doubt there’s any good news for my side.”

Yuri wasn’t even sure whose side Flynn was on anymore, because apparently he’d ditched Estelle’s side. “The fighting in the Vendée has mostly calmed down, which is good. The Republic won, which is… I don’t know. This was in the papers just a few days ago, actually. I’m going to go with this being bad news because six thousand royalist prisoners were executed.”

“Lucky them,” Flynn mumbled.

Yuri searched his memory for anything positive he could say about the state of affairs in France. He recalled hearing last December that there had been a proposal to form a committee to examine all detentions promptly and the free the innocent, but it had been struck down. Yuri had laughed when he read that article, because the mere idea of Robespierre organizing a committee that would actually look after the innocent was absurd. He doubted that Flynn would find the dark humour as amusing as Yuri had. There had to be _something_ non-depressing he could share with Flynn. “Oh! A few weeks ago, the Republic made slavery illegal in the colonies.”

“Oh.” Flynn had always been opposed to slavery, and Yuri tried not to think about how pleased the old Flynn would have been at this news. “Good for them.”

“So, at least the Republic did something right.”

“Yes… so they did.”

Yuri finished shaving Flynn in silence. When he finished, he wiped the soap away and smiled at the smooth face underneath. With his hair trimmed to its old length, the beard gone, and traces of pink reappearing in his cheeks, he was starting to look like himself again.

Talk of the colonies had brought a new thought to Flynn. “Why didn’t this happen in America?”

“Huh?” Yuri tucked an arm beneath his back to help Flynn lower himself back into a horizontal position.

When he’d gotten over the burst of pain from moving, he said, “They got rid of their king and made a new republic. I haven’t heard of anything like… _this_ happening over there. What did we do wrong?”

Yuri was not an expert on international politics, and in fact he barely knew anything of America beyond hearing people complain that Louis had bankrupted them by sending too much money to the Americans. This made Yuri predisposed to not like Americans, even if others said Louis had only done it to spite the British, whom Yuri was also predisposed to dislike by virtue of being French, as that was the natural order of things.

“They started a new republic and there were no mass executions,” Flynn went on. “Why was it so difficult here? All we wanted… all I wanted… was a constitution. I would have been happy with that. Just… just a constitution and a parliament like they have in Britain. I would have supported a republic, too, but not like this…. It’s all gone too far.”

“Yeah. It really has.”

* * *

 

**25 February, 1794**

Estelle was sweeping in the hall when she heard Flynn scream. She was already racing up the stairs when the broom hit the ground. There was no one else home with Flynn, since the rest of their group had work outside the house that kept food on the table. Estelle had gotten used to leaving rarely, but having Flynn upstairs had made every moment here tense. She found herself constantly alert for any sound from his bedroom and she imagined this was what new mothers felt like.

When she burst into Flynn’s room, she found him on the ground in a tangle of sheets, sobbing and shouting in incomprehensible Italian. “Flynn!” Estelle had not seen Flynn since he kicked her out of his room the first day. She’d resolved to do her best to help him, even if that meant depriving herself of his company for the time being. This situation demanded intervention, though. She dropped to her knees and tried to hold him still.

Flynn fought against the sheets. “ _Per favore! Per favore! Non!_ ”

“Flynn!” A hand hit her face, but it didn’t have much force behind it. She found his shoulders in the mess and pressed them into the floor, trying to force him to lie still. Flynn howled in pain, his bloodshot eyes looking through her. “You have to calm down. You’re hurting yourself.”

He struggled, but Estelle was stronger. Successfully pinning him down did not relax him, however. If anything, it made his distress worse. He babbled away in Italian, and Estelle understood a handful of words that were often repeated: no, please, stop, don’t.

Where was his mind right now? She suspected he had been having a nightmare that now bled into his waking life, and she didn’t know how to snap him out of it. She let go of his shoulders in fear of hurting him more, but luckily he’d at least stopping thrashing. As soon as she released him, he curled onto his side and pulled his arms over his head, muttering and shaking. Estelle knelt on the floor beside him for five minutes before he finally came to his senses.

“ _Dove_ …” Flynn coughed and switched to French. “Where am I?”

Estelle’s hand rested on his bicep and he flinched, expecting it to hurt. “You’re in your room. You’re safe now. It’s over.”

“Oh…. S-safe. Right.”

“Were you having a bad dream?”

“Not especially.”

Estelle wondered if he knew how painful those words were with the implication that the nightmare that had woken him up screaming wasn’t notably worse than anything else. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.”

“Was, too.”

Estelle struggled to stay optimistic. “It wasn’t real _now_. It was just a memory. You’re home and it’s safe and no one is going to hurt you again.”

Flynn didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem soothed by her words.

“Let’s get you back in bed.” She would do what she could for him, even if it felt like hardly anything. Flynn was easy to lift, since there was hardly any muscle or fat to him these days. Still, she wasn’t able to pick him up without his legs bumping the edge of the mattress, causing him to hiss. “Sorry!”

Once on the bed, Flynn curled onto his side and clutched his knee. He panted for breath, eyes squeezed shut and choked out, “ _Sott’a lu ponte… ci luce la luna… sott’a lu ponte, ci luce la luna….”_ As he spoke, his shaking slowed down and his voice levelled out.

Estelle watched, feeling helpless. Whatever he was saying, it seemed to help him calm down. It was the same few lines repeated over and over, which made her think he was reciting something, like a poem or a…. Estelle breathed in sharply when she remembered where she’d heard the words.

“Oh, Flynn….” She stroked his hair. He didn’t flinch at her touch, which Estelle considered an improvement. “It breaks my heart to see you hurt this much.”

“ _Mi frighje lu core,_ ” Flynn mumbled, his brow creased and eyes closed. “ _Un ne possu più… per favore, un ne possu più_.”

She feared he was drifting back into a distressing memory. “No, Flynn, stay awake.” She rested her hand on his wrist. “Stay in the present. It’s warm and safe here, and no one wants to hurt you… listen to me, Flynn.”

One eye cracked open, looking through her.

“Come on, Flynn, stay with me. Do you remember the first time you sang that song for me? I remember it really well. Listen to me and don’t think about anything but my voice. Don’t think about the past, just listen to my story - our story - and… maybe you’ll remember why you sang it for me.”

* * *

 

**28 June, 1789**

Ever since King Louis XIV, Estelle’s great-some-odd-grandfather, had moved the court to Versailles, the palace has been open to the public. She’d written Flynn a letter last week requesting he come to the palace today, and she could barely contain her excitement as she hurried down a circular staircase. There hadn’t been time for Flynn to write a reply, so she could only hope he would be there. Ioder had assured her that Flynn would come in his latest letter, after she’d written to her distant cousin back in Germany to update him on her ‘exciting new friend’.

She nearly tripped over her many-tiered gown as she leapt off the final stair and wobbled on the marble floor. Brimming with anticipation, she pushed open the glass double-doors to the courtyard. There he was, standing with his hands folded behind his back and his gaze locked on a terracotta deer head mounted to the wall. For a moment she hadn’t recognized him, because while she’d met him many times in the past year, it had always been at formal parties, when he dressed in the most expensive clothing he owned. Seeing him now, Estelle wished she’d worked up the courage to eschew court etiquette and invite him to meet her in private earlier. He was obviously much more comfortable in the clothes he regularly wore to university. His royal blue frock coat was of cheaper fabric and he didn’t bother with a wig, letting Estelle see his natural blond hair in all its glory for the first time. She wondered how wigs even sat flat on his head with hair so unruly.

Flynn noticed her watching him before she got over her initial surprise. When he turned, he raised the scroll of paper she had sent him. “Did I find the right place? Your letter said to come to ‘the deer courtyard’. I had to ask a servant and he looked at me funny and asked if I meant the Courtyard of the Stag.”

“Oh, oops.” She giggled and hurried across said courtyard. “I just call it the deer courtyard.”

Flynn looked back at the stag bust he’d been inspecting, and then between the seven other busts lining the walls on this floor and the one above. “I can see why.”

“But the important thing is that you found it.”

“Indeed I did. So!” Flynn took her hand, bowed, and kissed it. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your invitation? Do you need anything?”

“Sort of. I need you to come with me.” Estelle tugged on the sleeve of his coat.

“Lead on, my lady.”

Estelle brought Flynn back inside and away from the heat of summer. She felt bad for making him wait outside in the heat, but thought he’d be more comfortable there than one of the drawing rooms that were always crowded with servants or courtiers. They passed the staircase she had come down earlier and crossed through a room with golden chairs, a harp, and a uncomfortable turquoise settee.

Estelle paused at the door. “Have you been to the Grand Hall before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, boy, wait until you see it!” Estelle pushed the doors open and led Flynn into a long corridor.

He stopped a few steps in, gazing at the the walls lined in dozens of brown marble arches. On the right, the arches housed windows that cast chequerboard patterns of light on the slick bronze floor, and on the left, floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflected the midday sun. Above, the entire length of the hall was capped with a rounded ceiling featuring masterpieces of paintings: cherubs and angels, portraits of Estelle’s ancestors, and depictions of classical mythology. More than a dozen crystal chandeliers hung from that ceiling.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Estelle asked Flynn’s awestruck face. “The floor is really smooth, too. Sometimes, if no one is looking, I like to see how far I can slide in my stockings.”

Flynn tore his eyes from the glittering room to look at her with bemusement. “You slide around in your stockings in this opulent room?”

“Only sometimes,” she pouted.

The pair strode down the halls. Estelle kept glancing at Flynn’s face as he admired their reflection in the many mirrors, or gazed in wonder at the golden statues dressed in robes that stood guard along the wall. She supposed this was very different from his own home, and she wondered if she would ever have an opportunity to see where he lived.

At the end of the long hall, they entered the Peace Drawing Room. Estelle worried Flynn was going to hurt his neck with all the time he spent transfixed by the ceilings in the palace. This room was in a corner of the palace, so they made a right angle past a marble engraving of a horse and entered the queen’s bedchamber.

“This is where the queen sleeps?” Flynn asked, marvelling at the canopied bed with its lacy drapes and golden eagles.

“Not really. There’s a ceremony of waking up and going to bed in here, but she actually sleeps in a smaller room in the private area.” They lingered by the golden balustrade that separated the public part of the palace from the bed. “It’s kind of silly. There’s a whole deal about her going to bed here, and then when everyone is gone, she gets up and goes to a different bed.”

Flynn shook his head. “I will never understand royalty.”

Estelle giggled. “Not all royalty is like this. It was really different where I used to live, and Antoinette doesn’t like it, either. She said that the court of the Holy Roman Emperor is nowhere near as rigidly formal and he’s an emperor and not just a king, so what does that say about that?”

“Still, this room certainly puts my small apartment to shame.” Flynn had his arms folded like he was afraid of touching anything.

“You were really rich when you were a kid, though. Wasn’t it like this, somewhat?”

Flynn smiled again, but this time it was amused. “I don’t think anywhere else in the world is quite like Versailles. We had a large house in Corsica, but it was nothing compared to this.”

Estelle leaned around Flynn to check that no one was looking from the Peace Room, and then over her shoulder make sure the coast was clear from the State Cabinet, and pushed open the gate in the balustrade. Come on, we have to move quickly.”

She grabbed his wrist and pulled him beyond the barrier. As they went, Flynn stammered, “W-wait! Are we supposed to be here?”

“No, so shhh.” She pushed open a door in the back corner that blended into the wall. Flynn was busy looking over his shoulder as she pulled him through and then hooked around to the door immediately on their right. Estelle poked her head in first to make sure the coast was clear, and then dragged Flynn through a door disguised as a bookshelf and into a small library.

“Where are we?” Flynn whispered.

“You don’t have to whisper. The walls are thick. Anyway, this is Antoinette’s private library.”

Flynn was looking as pale as the white walls. “Are… are we supposed to be in here?”

“Not really, but it’s ok. Antoinette took the kids to her hamlet away from the palace, and I told Louis that I would be going with her. But, I told her that I would be staying here. So, we’re entirely free right now!” Estelle felt very pleased with herself for her cunning ruse.

“Her… hamlet?”

“Oh, she built a little village for herself away from the palace. She likes to go and dress up in peasant clothes and milk cows and stuff. Have you ever milked a cow?”

Flynn’s eyes drifted around the tall bookshelves trimmed in gold, the silver chandelier, and the rows and rows of leather-bound and gold-foiled books. “Can’t say that I have.”

“I’ve done it a few times. It’s fun, though I don’t think I’d want to do it every day.”

“Yes, it’s probably a pain. So, why are we here?”

“Becaaaause…” Estelle scanned her finger along the spines and then pulled out a thin book with a dark brown cover. “I heard Antoinette mention she had a copy of this book, and here it is.” She held it out to Flynn, but he took it with more confusion than excitement.

He eyed the cover, frowning at the title. “I’m afraid I don’t speak English. What is it?”

“It’s _Two Treatises of Government_ , by John Lock. You mentioned wanting to read the first half.”

“Oh!” Flynn opened the book and flipped through the pages. “This is frustrating. I’d like to read this, but I have no idea what any of it says.”

“Like I said, I can help you. I’ve studied English. I’m not really fluent or anything but I think I can get the gist of it.”

Flynn lowered the book to a polished wooden table. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think we have time right now for you for to try to summarize it. It’s probably very advanced language, too.”

“Well… I guess so.” She hung her head.

“Is this why you invited me here today? To show me the book?”

“That’s part of the reason. I also just…” She folded her hands and swayed her hips, making her skirts swing like a bell. “Wanted to see you. It’s nice, isn’t? To be here without a formal party and everyone watching us to make sure we’re not improper? And I like your hair.”

Flynn’s hand went to his head and he looked away, embarrassed. “My - my hair? I’m sorry, I knew I should have worn a wig, I just didn’t think of it and….”

“It’s ok,” she giggled. “I think it looks very nice without powder or fake curls.”

His hand slid away from the tousled mess. “My mother always complained that it never lies flat. I _did_ comb it this morning.”

“I believe you. Don’t worry; I think it’s cute.”

“Uh… ah… cute…?”

“Yes.” Estelle took his hands in hers. “I wish I could meet you where you lived, where you were comfortable, and not always here. It’s so… stuffy in here, and it’s so hard to find privacy. I wish I could leave the palace just for a day and see Paris the way you see it.”

“As a filthy conglomeration of narrow streets covered in horse droppings and sewage?”

“Well… at least it would be interesting. We could spend hours together and not have the eyes of the court constantly on us and making sure nothing ever comes of us.” Estelle knew very well that if anyone thought Estelle felt more strongly toward Flynn than merely an entertaining distraction to dance with at balls, their ability to see each other would be shut down at once. Then again, _was_ there anything more? Estelle knew she liked Flynn quite a bit, but they were still just… friends, she supposed. They spent time together, they were frequent dance partners, but that was all they were and it was all they could ever be. It was fun, yes, but Estelle realized that she wasn’t satisfied with the way things were.

“We don’t have the eyes of the court on us now.” Flynn looked around the room, but he didn’t even know where the exits were, since the doors were disguised as bookshelves. “What would you like to do now that we’re alone?”

“Um… um….” She searched the room for inspiration. She hadn’t really thought about this meeting beyond spending time with him alone. “Will you dance with me?”

“Dance? We dance all the time.”

“Yes, but… that’s court dancing. Can’t we try a dance where you’re not always a foot away from me? A dance where we actually touch more than just our fingertips?”

Flynn gave her a little half-smile. “Oh? That sounds rather scandalous.”

“I read it in a book! There was a character who was complaining about the way the aristocrats were dancing and he said they were, um, it said he put his arm around her and pressed her to his breast and then they ‘cavorted and whirled’. Well, the character said it was shameless and indecent, but I thought it sounded really nice.”

“Heh. Well, I don’t know if I can perfect a dance from a description so vague, but let’s see what we can do.”

Flynn encircled her shoulders and pulled her toward him, crumpling her puffy dress. Estelle’s heart fluttered at being so near to him and she knew, more firmly than ever before, that she wished Flynn could be more than an interesting diversion at parties. His other hand clutched hers and then he pulled her away from the table and began a dance.

Neither of them knew what they were doing. A few times Flynn trod on Estelle’s feet and mis-timed steps sent them bumping into bookshelves with a giggle. Flynn began to hum as they whirled around the library, a soft melody barely audible. Pressed this close to him, Estelle could feel the vibration in his chest as well as she could hear it.

She listened in silence, enjoying the haphazard dance, until her curiosity grew too great. “What song is that?”

“Huh?” They paused mid-step and she wondered if he’d even consciously noticed he’d been humming.

“The song you were humming. It sounds so pretty.”

“Oh. That. I’m sorry; I mentioned my mother earlier and it ended up stuck in my head. She used to sing it to me. It’s just an old lullaby.”

“What are the words?”

“Ah… well… I’m afraid I can’t really sing… and in it’s Italian so you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

“Oh, please? I promise I won't’ judge.”

“Well… ok.” They picked up the step again, moving with even less grace now that Flynn was distracted by the song. Half of the dance ended up just being swaying around the room, holding each other tight, which Estelle didn’t object to in any case.

“ _Sott'a lu ponte_

_Ci luce la luna_

_In celu e stelle_

_Une manca manc'una_

_Dormi…”_

Flynn had been right; he wasn’t a very good singer. His voice came out stumbling and uncertain and he only hit the notes clearly half the time. None of this bothered Estelle, who thought Italian sounded dreamy even if it wasn’t performed by a talented singer. She had been to many operas in her time, but she couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather listen to than Flynn, stumbling through a childhood song with his voice so close to her ear.

“ _…Sta sera ma tù. Dormi._ ” The last word flowed across several notes until his voice faded. They drew to a stop and Flynn met her eyes. “Uh… was that ok?”

Estelle gazed back at him, her mind lost in a fuzz of adoration. “It was wonderful.”

He was still holding her. Estelle knew how this scene should end, because she’d read it in so many romance novels. Would Flynn mind? Did he think they were just friends? But, no one who was looking at her like this could feel nothing but friendship… right? Estelle took a risk. She pushed herself onto her tiptoes, leaned forward, and quickly pressed her lips against his.

Their lips brushed for a fleeting split-second, and then he pulled away. Flynn dropped his arms and took a step back, his eyes wide.

“I - I’m sorry!” Estelle hugged herself in embarrassment. “I thought - I just-”

“No!” Flynn waved his hands quickly. “No, I’m not upset. I’m sorry. I - I wish I could kiss you.”

Estelle pouted. “You sure have a funny way of showing it.”

Flynn rubbed his neck and looked at his feet. “Estelle… you know we can’t.”

“I can kiss anyone I want to.”

“What would your uncle say?”

Estelle’s hug tightened and she looked away. “I don’t have to tell him.”

Flynn rested a hand on her shoulder. “He would find out. You said yourself it’s hard to find privacy here. If we tried to be together in any real sense, someone would find out.”

The worst part was that she knew he was right. And if someone did find out… the consequences would be worse for Flynn than her, for sure. At the very least, she would never see him again. “Why do you have to go and be sensible?”

“What we have is… fun. As much I would love to turn it into something more, you and I both know that it can’t last. You will marry a member of nobility to strengthen your family’s political ties, and under no circumstances can a princess be romantically involved with a commoner.”

“I know. It’s just… I wish things didn’t have to be this way.”

Flynn brought his fingers under her chin and tilted her head back. “Chin up, _cara mia_.”

“Cara… mia?”

“Ah….” Flynn licked his lips and glanced away. “I - sorry, it just slipped out… it means ‘my beloved’ in Italian. I won’t-”

“No.” She smiled. “I like it, _mein Liebster_.”

“Heh, ok then, _cara mia_. Nothing lasts forever, but let’s enjoy what we can.”

“Ok. We’ll make the most of the time we have.”

“Now… can we please return to the public part of the palace? I feel very antsy back here.”

“As you wish. I’ll give you a private tour.”

* * *

**25 February, 1794**

Estelle finished talking when she realized Flynn had fallen asleep. There was more to the story, like sneaking out of the library through Antoinette’s private sitting room, and Flynn’s panic when they snuck through the hidden passage that connected Antoinette’s bedroom to the king’s antechamber. Flynn had been certain they would be caught by Louis himself, and certain that the king would immediately have him hung, drawn, and quartered after being caught sneaking around with his niece. They hadn’t been, though, which meant Estelle got to tease him about his nerves after they returned to the Grand Hall.

Flynn slept peacefully, hopefully not trapped in another nightmare reliving his confinement. Even if her story didn’t re-endear herself to Flynn, if it at least helped Flynn slip into a restful sleep, it hadn’t been worthless. She was still worried about his pain, though. They’d had him home for nearly two weeks, and he was still unable to leave his bed. The few times he had tried putting weight on his legs, he’d ended in a crumpled heap with Yuri and Judith helping him get back to bed while he moaned and chanted the lyrics to the song again. Estelle guessed that _Sott’a lu Ponte_ had become a mantra of his in prison. She could imagine him singing it to himself while curled up in a dark cell, seeking any sort of comfort in a memory of his childhood. Of course she had noticed his pattern of reciting it whenever his pain spiked, so it seemed he’d taken to using it as a way to distract himself during the worst of his torture.

If only there was something else she could do for him - some way to numb his aching joints and soothe his fractured bones. If they only had proper medical supplies. They barely had the money to afford coal to keep him from freezing to death; there was no way they could afford a tincture of laudanum to drug him out of his misery. Estelle stared out the window at the icicles clustering under the eaves and wished for spring to come soon and then at least they didn’t have to worry about him freezing.

Inspiration struck. Estelle mouthed a small ‘oh!’ and then ran out of the room. She took the pillowcase from her bed and then Rita’s (she hoped she wouldn’t mind) and then ran downstairs to the garden. Standing on the stone bench, she wrapped her hands around the base of an icicle as thick around as her forearm. After prying it from the awning over the door, she let it fall to the ground and shatter. She tore down a few more icicles until her fingers were numb, and then hopped down and began shoving all the broken fragments of ice into the pillowcases. With the bags weighed down with ice, she returned to Flynn’s room.

“I hope this helps,” she whispered and gently positioned each bag of ice over a knee. Of all his injuries, it was his knees that seemed to bother him the most. Flynn let out a sleepy groan and then Estelle brushed a lock of hair behind his ear. He really needed a haircut, because his usually unruly hair had become a disaster after three months in prison. “I hope you feel better soon, Flynn,” she murmured to him. “And I hope the ice numbs the pain, at least a little bit.”

Flynn sighed and then, under his breath, mumbled, “ _Cara mia…._ ”

Estelle’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes, that’s right. That’s what you used to call me. _Cara mia…_ your beloved.” She leaned over so she could speak right into his ear. “And I just know you’ll remember that soon.” She left a kiss on his forehead, light enough to not wake him. “ _Ich liebe dich, mein Liebster.”_


	5. The Causes We'll Die For

**2 March, 1794**

Yuri and Estelle weren’t the only ones who sat by Flynn's bed and told him stories. Rita, Judith, and Karol took turns, too. They talked about hours spent in the Rue du Ciel garden, debating philosophers from Demosthenes to Locke, of balls at Versailles where they crept away from the crowds to sit quietly and compare childhoods, of smearing each other with flour in La Comète’s kitchen until Rita yelled at them to stop wasting it. All the stories had a fuzzy, dream-like quality. Flynn remembered them, but they didn’t exactly feel real. Nothing about his past felt entirely real. Compared to the sharp edges and harsh screaming of the Conciergerie, everything else in life was soft and distant. Even Yuri’s description of chestnut trees and white sand hitting crystal-blue seas failed to resonate with him. He knew in his head that the scene he was imagining - that he was _remembering_ \- was Corsica, his home, but the memory was bland and dry. Like eating tantalizing food only for it to taste like ash in your mouth.

Yuri and Karol were the ones he saw the most, since they shared his room. Rita and Judith came in every now and then to deliver a meal and a story. Estelle stayed away completely, for which he was grateful. He had only seen Raven once since his return, although he hadn’t visited for very long. That was Flynn’s fault, he knew. He’d heard everyone downstairs, talking and laughing. Part of him longed to join the gathering and be part of his group of friends once more, while the other part of him complained that they were loud and annoying and he wanted them to shut up and leave him in peace. Yuri and Raven had come up during dinner with a plate of food. They apologized that Flynn wasn’t strong enough to get out of bed and join them, but hoped he could enjoy dinner in his room. 

Flynn had stared at the bowl Raven was holding out to him. Raven had said something, surely. It had probably been some meaningless well-wishing or inquiring how he felt (as if any of them _really_ wanted to know the depths of what he felt), but Flynn hadn’t been able to focus on the words or the stew. His eyes were trained on Raven’s wrist and the cuff of his General Security uniform, and then his gaze moved up over his chest and the many silver buttons.

_…and he almost thought he could see his reflection in Cumore’s shiny buttons. He didn’t think he wanted to see his reflection, because surely he’d barely recognize himself at this point. His face was so marred by bruises and cuts, his cheeks unnaturally defined by starvation. He lay on his back, his calves locked in stockades, and someone was smearing animal fat on his feet. He knew what they were going to do and he knew there was only one way to stop them from lighting the fire, but he wouldn’t - couldn’t - say it._

_Cumore’s boot pressed against his cheek and ground his face into the stone floor. “Where is Estelle?”_

_That question again. They asked it so often it barely held meaning anymore. Estelle. The very name signalled incoming agony. Cumore crouched and the candlel in his hand gleamed in all his silver buttons._

_“Well? Where is she?”_

_“In…” Flynn wheezed. Cumore had kicked him in the ribs earlier and something had snapped again._

_“Yes?”_

_Rue du Ciel. That was all he had to say and they wouldn’t set his feet on fire. Flynn coughed and spat blood from his mouth. “In… intro culo di madre.”_

_Cumore’s eyes narrowed and he looked to one of his lackeys. “What did he say?” They shrugged and he grabbed a handful of Flynn’s hair, jerking his head back. “I told you not to speak Italian.”_

_“Vaffanculo.”_

_Cumore rose and kicked Flynn’s face. “I shouldn’t expect anything better from a filthy foreigner. Clearly he has no loyalty to France or the Republic. No wonder he was so willing to help that royal whore.”_

_“Don’t call her that.”_

_Cumore looked back at him. “Oh, so you do speak French.”_

_“She’s not a… she’s….”_

_“Where is she?”_

_“Fuck you.” Usually he only swore at them in Italian, because speaking Italian angered Cumore less than swearing at him. He really wanted Cumore to know what he was saying this time, though._

_Cumore glared at him and handed the candle to a guard. “Light him.” Cumore stood over him and Flynn started at his many silver buttons as if transfixed, because it was easier than looking at the candle flame moving nearer and nearer to his feet._

_He could stop this. All he’d have to do was say ‘La Comète’. Just say those words and it would all end. He swallowed the words down and forced them out of his mind. He couldn’t say it because-_

He didn’t remember attacking Raven, but suddenly the bowl was on the floor and his hands ached with fresh stabs of pain. Yuri was hugging him against his chest while Raven back away, holding up his hands. Yuri shouted at him to leave and Flynn didn’t stop feeling sick until a long time after that uniform left his room.

He shouldn’t have lashed out at Raven. It hadn’t been his fault, and Raven had done nothing but help him. Knowing that he was behaving irrationally didn’t make him feel any better, but he accepted it as his punishment that now Yuri would have to straighten the fingers he’d damaged again.

“Stop biting your lip,” Yuri said.

Flynn hadn’t even realized he was doing it, but now tasted copper on his tongue.

“Every time it heals, you bite it again and the process has to start over.”

“I… yeah.” His lower lip had been split, healed, and re-split so many times that he barely remembered what it felt like to be whole.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“I - I don’t know.” He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself, even though a voice said, _stupid, Yuri isn’t going to hit you_. It was so hard to get used to _not_ being hit whenever he didn’t satisfactorily answer a question.

Yuri saw the flash of terror the question had brought and put it aside. “Whatever. Give me your hand.”

“What’s the point?” Flynn grumbled, holding out the purple and red tangle of bone and flesh. “They’re never going to heal right anyway.”

“We can still do the best that we can. Look, your index and middle finger are crooked. Let me fix this for you.” And then, as usual, he tried to distract Flynn from the pain with another story - this time, one of his own.

* * *

 

**13 July, 1789**

La Comète was unusually crowded for a Monday night. Despite that, it had a typical Monday level of peacefulness. Though it was packed, the patrons were all engaged in deep conversation. Yuri, sitting at a corner table with Flynn and Raven, was taking advantage of the fact that Rita and Karol were available to serve drinks so he could have a chance to sit down. He was sure Hermes wouldn’t mind, as long as no one left hungry and grumpy.

“All right, old man.” Yuri looked across the table at Raven. “What’s the deal?”

“I have to say, I’m curious myself,” Flynn said. “I went to university this morning and as I was leaving, I started hearing people shouting about some kind of new army being formed.”

Raven leaned back in his chair. “It’s not an army, exactly. They’re callin’ it the Bourgeois Militia. It’s like… a people’s militia, separate from the king.”

One of Flynn’s hands rested on his glass of wine; it seemed he was too engrossed in the conversation to take a drink. “Does this have anything to do with Minister Necker’s dismissal?” Paris had been turning into a powder keg ever since the popular politician had been fired by the king.

“Seems like it,” Raven said. “Have ya heard the rumours that the king’s plannin’ an attack on the National Assembly?”

“He wouldn’t,” Flynn said. “The Assembly is supported by the law. He may not like them, but they have legitimate power.”

Yuri snorted. “You’re cute, Flynn. Since when do kings care about legitimate power that isn’t theirs? Honestly, I was kinda expecting this.”

Raven shrugged. “I dunno if it’s true, but the Assembly is worried it is. So they formed this new militia, see? And I joined up ‘cause I liked Minister Necker and I’d rather be part o’ the army that supports him. ‘Sides, I can see which way the wind is blowing.”

“And you think it’s blowing to an unorganized civilian militia?” Flynn raised his eyebrows.

“Look, kid, I’ve been around the world quite a bit longer than you-”

“-You’re only thirty-four; that’s hardly ancient.”

“- _merci,_ Flynn, but the point remains. What’s goin’ on now is unprecedented. Well, that’s not true - but the major precedent is the American colonies. I’ve heard people throw around the word revolution.”

Yuri whistled. “Think we can ditch Louis like the Americans ditched George?”

Raven glanced around the room. “Keep your voice down, kid. Ya can’t just talk about overthrowin’ the king in public.”

Yuri didn’t think a tavern he practically lived at counted as public, but he complied and leaned forward. “Ok, fine. So how does one go about joining this new militia?”

“You want in, Yuri?” Flynn asked.

Yuri glanced back. “Don’t you?” He and Flynn had grown to be good friends in the past couple of years, and they’d often spoken of their dreams for a more democratic future. To Yuri, the events of recent months were exciting. He actually felt like there was a chance of seeing real change in the country after centuries of absolute rule by arrogant fat kings. He saw a glimmer of hope that the common people of France could finally have a say in running the country, and joining up with the militia on the path to revolution seemed like the best way to reach that light.

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his fingers on the glass, deep in thought. “I support reform, that’s for sure. I support the idea of a constitution. Actual revolution, though… do we really want to get rid of the royals entirely?”

Yuri snorted. “Are you sure this view isn’t influenced by a certain princess you’re infatuated with?”

Flynn stiffened. “What? No. Not at all.”

Raven elbowed Flynn in the ribs. “Not keen on kicking out the girl you wanna bang, eh?”

“I-it’s not like that!” Flynn’s cheeks began to flush, and Yuri didn’t think it was the wine. “We haven’t - we’re not - I mean, we just like spending time together….”

Yuri couldn’t stop himself from cracking up at how flustered Flynn had become.

“It’s true!” Flynn slapped the table. “Princess Estelle and I haven’t done anything indecent. Stop laughing, Yuri. We’re… _close_ , yes, but we both know it would be inappropriate so we remain nothing but friends.”

“So you oughta support ditchin’ the monarchy,” Raven said. “If she wasn’t a princess, ya could finally bang her.”

“It’s not… I don’t… um….”

Yuri fund the strength to stop laughing. “Ok, let’s give the poor guy a rest, old man. Aren’t we supposed to be talking about politics?”

“Yes!” Flynn leapt to return to that topic. “My stance is this: reforming the government, establishing a parliament with a constitution that limits the king’s power, and ensuring rights and freedoms for common people is a noble goal. I’m uncertain about trying to overthrow the king outright, though - and no, it isn’t just because I care about Estelle. That’s a very radical change and I’m worried about who might be hurt in the process. Consider that the Americans were at war for eight years, and their opponent was on the other side of the ocean. Ours would be a civil war. Haven’t the riots yesterday been dissuasive enough? How many people will die if we try to move too far, too fast?”

Yuri folded his arms. “And how many people will starve if the food crisis keeps going? We’ve got plenty of regular customers who aren’t here anymore because the winter was so bad. Starvation, sickness, everything. Maybe you don’t have to worry about the supply of bread at your fancy university, but the king keeps spending money on useless shit while his people starve.”

“I _know_ that,” Flynn said. “And I’m worried about the famine, too, Yuri. I don’t think my father ever intended I spend such a large proportion of my inheritance on bread. And this is why I’m hesitant to take up arms; will fighting make the crops come back? Will a civil war refill the national coffers?”

Yuri shook his head. “No, but if the king is bringing in the army to break up the National Assembly, we’ll be right back to where we started. For the first time in history, we’re taking steps. If the Assembly is broken up, we’ll go right back to where we started and it could be another five hundred years of absolute rule before the people rise up again. We have to defend the progress we’ve made so far.” Yuri looked to Raven. “I’m heading out with you tomorrow morning. No way in hell am I letting this momentum fizzle out before it even gets started.”

Flynn stared into his glass. “I think…” He chewed on his lip. “We do need reform. We need a constitution and we need to secure rights for the common people. I’m anxious about fighting, but maybe you’re right. If the army uses violence to try to break up the National Assembly, we have no choice but to defend it with the same. Thirty years ago, my father took up arms to fight the Genoese and drive them from our island. Many people died in the fighting, but it resulted in a free republic. I think, if my dad were here, he would fight to defend the National Assembly.”

“So you’re with us?” Yuri asked.

Flynn looked up from his drink. “I don’t want a revolution and I don’t want to overthrow the monarchy outright, but I will fight to defend the progress the common people have made.”

“I can drink to that!” Raven held up his glass and the three drinks clinked together. “Word ta the wise, though. Keep your opinions ta yourself tomorrow. Plenty of people will think any sorta talk of supporting the monarchy is counterrevolutionary and they’ll label ya one of the bad guys.”

Flynn sighed. “Don’t talk about overthrowing the king, and don’t talk about _not_ overthrowing the king. It seems like expressing any sort of political opinion at all is dangerous these days.”

Yuri nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

The next morning, Yuri and Judith left home early. Karol asked to come, but Yuri took one look at his eleven-year-old friend and demanded he spend the day inside with Rita. They met Raven and Flynn on their way toward the the gathering of protesters. They didn’t talk much on the walk, their minds focused on what the day might hold. After reaching a major road, another man fell into step beside them.

“ _Bonjour_ , Captain,” the newcomer said to Raven. “I see you’ve left the army behind as well.”

Raven raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Cumore. Thought you loved the king?”

The man smirked. “You’re not the only one who saw which way the wind was blowing. No, I don’t see much of a future siding with the king these days.”

Raven snorted. “And let me guess; you’ll be right back in the army as soon as it looks like they’re gonna win.”

Cumore just smiled idly.

“Who’s your friend?” Yuri asked, though he could tell by Raven’s face that ‘friend’ was a very loose term. 

“Ah, right. Yuri, Flynn, Judith this is Captain Cumore, from the army. Though, I guess he’s in the militia now.”

Yuri stuck out his hand, but Cumore looked up and down at his patched trousers, dirty shirt, and unkempt hair and wrinkled his nose. He completely ignored Judith.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Flynn, whose clothes were clear and neat enough to deserve a handshake. “Flynn Scifo.”

“Scifo? Are you Italian?”

“Corsican, but originally, yes.”

Cumore pulled his hand back and wiped it on his thigh. “I didn’t know our militia accepted foreigners. How do we know where your loyalties lie?”

Flynn frowned. “I’ve lived in France since I was ten.”

Cumore didn’t look convinced. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Scifo.”

Eager to change the subject, Raven said, “Do ya know what the plan is?”

“Oh, yes.” Cumore cheered up considerably now that he could enlighten them with his knowledge. “The first step is to acquire arms to properly equip the militia. I believe the plan to steal cannons and gunpowder from the Hôtel des Invalides, and perhaps from there requisition supplies from the Bastille.”

“The Bastille?” Flynn sounded surprised. “We’re going to break into that fortress?”

“What’s wrong? Not feeling so supportive of the cause anymore?”

Flynn glared at him. “Worried about the possible casualties of storming such a prison, actually.”

“If it must be done, it must be done,” Judith said. “Let’s force the king to take a little notice of how serious we are.”

Up ahead, the din of thousands of Parisians on the street was growing louder. Yuri’s chest buzzed with anticipation. Whatever happened today, he could tell it would be a day to remember.

* * *

 

**10 March, 1794**

Flynn woke up sweating and panting. This set off shivers, because the room was cold and the blanket not nearly warm enough. A dream had woken him. It had started pleasant enough, with him whirling around a room that glittered with crystal and gold, a girl in his arms. He couldn’t remember what the girl’s face looked like, but he thought it must have been Estelle.

Flynn shook his head and tried to clear his mind. There were so many memories swirling around his head, which he could neatly divide into two piles. There were the memories he received from his friends, which shared a common theme of how much he adored Estelle. Then there were his own memories, which were all interlaced with a deep hatred for the girl who had sent him to prison. Had he really cared for her, like his friends said? The beginning of the dream had been so pleasant. He’d felt so warm and bright when he held her, and he could watch his own happy face in the mirrors that surrounded them. But then the ground cracked and crumbled and Flynn felt her shove him and he fell. That was what had happened in real life, right? He went through all that work to help her, and then she’d done nothing to help him.

 _(What did you expect her to do? March into the Conciergerie and and trade places with you_?)

She could have!

 _(They would have killed her. They would have cut off her head_.)

They had planned to do that to _him_.

_(You could have saved yourself the pain and told them where she was the first day.)_

No, he couldn't’ do that. That had never been option.

_(Right, and why is that?)_

He just couldn’t. It was a rule.

_(It’s because you're in l-)_

No.

Flynn tried to remember the face of the girl in his dream, but when Estelle’s face swam to the front of his mind, he felt a shudder of fear and an ache in his back. Estelle meant pain.

 _Where is Estelle_? Cumore’s voice echoed in his head and he pulled the blanket over his face with a gasp. _Where is Estelle?_ Cumore was nowhere near him, Flynn told himself fervently. He was far away, in another part of the city, with no idea where he was.

It had been almost a month since he’d been rescued. Shouldn’t he be over it by now? Admittedly, the pain had dulled. It now ached in the background rather than consuming him, and his fingers were starting to heal. He doubted they would ever reach their old functionality, but they were more red than purple and at least they were mostly straight. Thumbscrews, Flynn decided, could fuck right off.

But he _was_ healing. There were no more open wounds on his torso, and Yuri said his face was getting colour again. That is, a healthy pinkish colour, rather than the purple and yellow splotches of bruises or the dark red of scabs. The ice his friends had been packing around his joints ( _that was Estelle’s idea; she cares so-_ ) sapped the ache and he was hopeful that within a few weeks, he’d be able to stand up again. It was quite wearisome to stay in bed for so long, and he hated feeling dependant on his friends for everything from bringing him meals to emptying the chamber pot. Flynn longed for independence and the privacy it would bring. For so long, he’d been helpless to control what happened to his body as he was pushed around, stripped, and forced into painful positions. And now, Yuri fed him, bathed him, changed his bandages, and inspected the progression of his healing wounds. Though he knew Yuri was doing it to help, it was frustrating to still feel like his body had become public property for others to touch as they pleased.

If only things could go back to the way they used to be. Back to the cozy life he and Estelle had shared here before that fateful day last November - no, not that. That was too recent. He’d still been in danger - because of Estelle - and Flynn wanted to go back to a time when he hadn’t been afraid of anything. Before this revolution started and every day brought fresh uncertainty and worries, before he’d met Estelle and begun to worry about what would happen if anyone knew just how deep their - no, wait, there wasn’t anything there. She’d always just been using him.

_“…twisted you around her little finger. What has a princess ever done to engender such loyalty?”_

_Flynn lay on his side, wrists shackled behind his back, coughing and spitting as his stomach spasmed._

_“Hm?” Cumore kicked his shoulder and Flynn rolled onto his back where the weight of his chest seemed to crush his lungs. “A spoiled little slut who had fun with a commoner and then used him to escape justice. I can’t believe you fell for it. She must have been an excellent fuck.”_

_Flynn wheezed and wished he could close his ears as well as his eyes. There was no point in arguing with him._

_“So, tell me… where is she?”_

_Flynn’s chest heaved and he tried to cough out more water._

_“Don’t you realize how stupid you look for having loyalty to princess who was just using you? Do you actually think she cared about a poor foreigner like you?”_

_It wasn’t true. Estelle wasn’t like that. He couldn’t tell them where she was._

_“Not ready to talk? Let’s try another round.” Cumore raised his voice. “Let’s do two gallons this time.”_

_“No… please….”_

_Flynn groaned as the funnel was shoved into his mouth again and a guard brought two heavy buckets of water toward him. Cumore’s pinching grip on his hair kept him from turning his head away as the water gushed into his mouth. Flynn coughed and sputtered as the water poured down a throat still burning from being forced to throw up a gallon of water five minutes earlier. He could barely breathe and his eyes teared up, stomach cramped, throat burned._

_“Amazing. You’re suffering all this for someone who doesn’t give a crap about you.”_

_That wasn’t true, it wasn’t, he was suffering for Estelle_ , _and he did it because he-_

Flynn smashed his face into his pillow and fought the memory back into the recesses of his mind. Don’t think about those memories. There was no point reliving the past every night when he needed to concentrate on the future. He never wanted to think about those memories again, because he could never _just_ think about them. They always came along with a racing heart or phantom aches. He just wanted to feel normal again, and he wanted his memories to stop confusing him by suggesting conflicting feelings for Estelle.

Why hadn’t he revealed her location? It was simple: because he wasn’t supposed to. It was preposterous to think that he’d even had a choice in the matter, because why would he _choose_ to go through that, for any reason? It was as simple as that.

( _But why didn’t you feel that you had a choice?_ )

Shut up.

Estelle equalled pain. That simple equation was at the core of his understanding of the world. How could he have fallen for pain?

( _Estelle helped your pain go away, though_ )

No, no, no, this was too complicated. It was hard enough to deal with life without these confusing emotions. Life should be _simple_ , with no pain and no nightmares and no complicated relationships people kept trying to talk to him about.

* * *

 

**12 March, 1794**

Yuri was washing dishes in the kitchen of La Comète when Karol sidled in. It was early afternoon, so he didn’t expect the barroom to start filling up for another few hours. It was a surprise, then, when he asked what was up and Karol said, “There’s someone here to see you.”

Yuri set his cloth on the rim of the bucket. “Who?” In days past, someone stopping in to chat with the owner of a tavern might be cause for curiosity, but not alarm. These days, an unknown visitor poking around and asking questions could easily be an informant. The fact that Yuri had recently hijacked a prison cart and released a dozen condemned prisoners, in addition to harbouring two wanted criminals in his house, made him a bit antsy about unknown callers.

“I don’t know who he is, but he looks rich. He asked to talk to whoever was in charge.”

This didn’t calm Yuri’s nerves. He shook his hands off and wiped the rest on his shirt, then left the kitchen to see who had come calling.

The young man standing by the bar did indeed look rich with his silk vest and green swallowtail coat. He held a black hat in perfectly manicured hands that had clearly never down a day’s work. Yuri wondered how he’d made it to La Comète without slush staining his pure white stockings, but then he noticed a coach parked on the corner through the window. Whoever this guy way, he was certainly not Yuri’s usual clientele.

“Can I help you?”

The young man fiddled with the hat in his hands. “Does Flynn Scifo work here?”

Yuri’s heart skipped a beat. He’d known this couldn’t be a simple case of a poor aristocrat getting lost and needing directions. “Who’s asking?”

“Someone who’d like to know about Flynn Scifo.”

“Ok, see, we’re at a bit of an impasse here, because I’m not going to give out details about Flynn until you tell me who you are and why you want to know.” This guy must not be from around here, and not only because he spoke French with an accent. In these suspicious times, nobody in Paris just freely gave out information about their friends to strangers. Who knew if the person you were talking to was a Committee member looking to arrest them?

The young man frowned at his hat. “I’m… a friend of one of Flynn’s friends. I was told he worked at a tavern called La Comète, and I was hoping he could help me get in touch with our mutual friend.”

The longer the man spoke, the more his accent fell into place. Yuri, who had never left Paris before and largely stuck to the grimy backstreets of the poorer arrondissments, had very little experience with foreigners. There were two foreign accents he was familiar enough with to reliably pinpoint: Italian and German. This guy’s language fell squarely in the latter, and Yuri began to put the pieces together. Flynn wasn’t terribly outgoing and as far as Yuri knew, he didn’t have any close friends outside of their group here. Who did Flynn know well enough that they’d talk about him and his work to someone else, who was upper-class enough to be friends with someone in such expensive clothes, and who spoke German? There was only one person Yuri could think of on all three lists.

“Is this about Estelle?”

His eyes sharpened. “You know Estellise? I mean, Estelle, as she’s called here?”

Yuri folded his arms. “I might. Depends on who’s asking.”

He looked around, checking the door and windows, and then seemed to make the decision to trust Yuri. “My name is Ioder. I’m a relative of Estelle’s. I’ve come to help her flee France.”

* * *

 

**16 January, 1794**

The night before, Cumore had told Flynn about their plans for today. Flynn would have thought it would be nice to know in advance, so that at least he could prepare himself, but now he wished he’d remained in the dark. The straw on the floor was uncomfortable enough to sleep on when he wasn’t lying awake and pondering the rack. It was a device he’d heard about all his life, always spoken of with fear and intimidation. He’d heard stories about men being permanently crippled by it - or have having their limbs ripped right out of their sockets. He’d always known the Conciergerie possessed one, since he could see it sitting in the back corner of the torture chamber. Flynn had always convinced himself it was only used on the _real_ criminals, like murderers.

But then last night, when they'd unshackled his wrists from the whipping post and Flynn collapsed to the ground in a shaking heap, Cumore had grabbed his head by the hair and twisted it around to stare at the machine about the size of a dining room table. Flynn couldn’t recall his exact words because he’d lost them in a haze of agony and fear, but the meaning was still horribly clear. Tomorrow - this morning - it was going to be used on him.

Now, Flynn lay on his side on the straw and wondered what time it was. There was no light down here but the flickering of torches, so he had no idea if the sun was up yet. Even then, he didn’t know if Cumore planned to come right at dawn, or make him wait until mid-morning. He heard footsteps coming down the hall and his heart throbbed with terror. Flynn folded his arms around himself and pulled his knees in tight, as if he could shrink into a ball and they wouldn’t see him, even though the cell was empty of anything to hide behind. A cell door further up the hall opened and he heard gruff voices. Another prisoner was being taken out; it wasn’t Flynn’s turn yet. They didn’t bring the prisoner past Flynn’s cell, in the direction of _that_ room, so Flynn wondered if the person was being taken to be executed.

 _Lucky bastard_.

The reason he didn’t get a bed with a sheet, Flynn thought, was as much to make him miserable as it was to take away anything he could use as an impromptu noose. He’d decided over a month ago (or perhaps longer; time didn’t have much meaning here) that he would absolutely shoot himself if he ever got his hands on a pistol. He’d long ago realized there was no chance of escape or rescue from this dungeon, and no matter what happened during the interrogation, it would end with him being executed. He wished he could die now and get it over with.

 _If you told them Estelle was at La Comète… they would finally let you die_.

Flynn clamped his eyes shut and tried to push that thought away. It was worrying close to the front of his mind too often these days.

He didn’t know how long he lay in the cell, curled up and dreading the future. Every noise set off his panic that the time had come, mixed with relief that the wait was over. When the footsteps finally came all the way to his cell and he heard Cumore’s voice, he wasn’t sure if he was more terrified of what was to come or relieved that he could finally get it over with.

“Get up.” Cumore stood with his arms crossed, looking down at Flynn with distaste. Flynn couldn’t blame him, considering he hadn’t bathed since he’d been imprisoned. He didn’t notice the stench of the dungeons anymore, considering he’d been immersed in it for so long, but some bastard that got to go home at the end of the day must be put off by the mixture of blood, rotting wounds, sweat, urine - both human and rat - and mould that dripped down the walls.

Flynn thought about this as he struggled upright. He’d made it a condition for himself to always walk into the interrogation room with his head held high, but that was becoming increasingly difficult as his body failed to live up to his mind’s resolve. Just standing was agony as he put pressure on the red burns and blisters that engulfed his feet. Flynn shuffled forward, leaning on the wall for support. The cell door was already open, Cumore and his lackeys waiting for him. Flynn didn’t think they were the same lackeys every day, but some faces re-appeared consistently.

In the hall, those somewhat-familiar lackeys gripped his arms and Flynn slumped. Letting them drag him was less painful than taking steps with his burned feet. What if he just dropped dead right now before Cumore had his fun? Wouldn’t _that_ show them? Ha… ha-ha….

Flynn didn’t fight as they brought him into the familiar room. His throbbing heart seemed to echo with how hollow he felt when they brought him to the wooden table.

Cumore slapped his back, which nearly knocked him over. “Well, Scifo? Any sudden insight into the princess’ whereabouts?”

Flynn stared at his mangled feet, which were missing several toenails. He tried not to let the fear bleed into his voice, but he didn’t think he succeeded very well. “I have no idea where she is.”

“Are all foreigners such filthy liars? Put him on.”

As much as he wanted to climb on it himself as a show of defiance, he didn’t have the strength and let the guards lift him. The still-healing lacerations from whipping stung when he thudded onto the rough wooden planks. Rope tightened around each wrist and ankle.

Why was he letting this happen? Flynn stared at the ceiling as Cumore pulled a lever one notch and the tension rose on the ropes, pulling his limbs in opposite directions. He had put himself through months of misery, and for what? Tension rose, starting to get uncomfortable.

“Just tell me where the damn princess is.” Cumore leaned casually against the rack, one hand resting on the lever. “I do not understand your dedication to that royal bitch. What has she ever done for you?”

Flynn struggled to think of an example, but his mind was so preoccupied with thoughts of rope and tension that it failed to wade back through months of hell to recall the past. He could barely even convince himself that life before this torment had been real.

“She’d sell you out in a second if your places were reversed.”

That wasn’t true. Was it? It was so hard to think straight. The haze of pain turned a brighter shade of red when the ropes tightened again. They dug into the burns around his ankles and sent fire up his legs.

“Where is she?” Rope creaked and Cumore strained himself to tug the lever to the next notch.

Flynn shook his head. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth without letting out a whimper.

The lever moved further. Minutes ticked by. Every time Cumore pulled the lever to the next notch, the wooden cylinder at Flynn’s feet wound the rope tighter and put more pressure on his body. Every joint strained; his body was being ripped in half. One of the guards had a candle (when had that happened? How long had he been here?) and brought it toward his bare torso. His body stretched taut, the flame hovered over his ribs and his teeth clamped into his cracked lip to hold in a cry. It was such a sharp pain in contrast to the steadily growing ache deep in his bones. _Please let this end soon… let it be over… let me die… let this end…._

“Where is Estelle?”

Rue du Ciel. The words bounced around his mouth, begging to be said. Tension increased and the flame burned a new path along his ribs. _Rue du Ciel_. Stabs of pain raced through his muscles; were they actually tearing apart or was it his imagination? Everything he’d endured so far had been sharp, quick, and stabbing. It had been miserable, but it had been fast. Now, the pain droned on and on, unending and merciless. It seeped into his bones and encompassed every inch of him. He’d take fifty sharp, localized lashes over this constant, whole-body torture.

“She never cared about you.”

That wasn’t true. It just… it just wasn’t. Flynn couldn’t concentrate on his reasons for not wanting to betray Estelle when every piece of his brain was occupied with taking in pain signals.

“You’re suffering for no reason. You’re protecting someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.”

No… no that wasn’t… was it? What did he know about _anything_? Ever since he arrived at the Conciergerie, it was like he was a different person. Everything he used to care about no longer mattered when his only concerns were wondering when he would be fed next, and when he would be tortured next.

“Where is Estelle?”

This time, Flynn couldn’t stop a moan from eking out when the ropes tightened. Her face hovered in his vision as Cumore shouted her name at him once again. This was happening because he was protecting her. This was happening _because of her_. _They’re going to rip my limbs out of their sockets because of Estelle_.

He tried to stop imagining the damage happening to his body by pulling up happier memories. He pushed his mind back and back until it landed on his hand entwined with a larger one. Looking down and seeing white sand spill over his feet. Waves rushed to his right and his mother towered over him to his left. The breeze was warm, the trees swayed. _Corsica…._ If only Dad never died… if only they’d never come to Paris… if only he could have sat this whole revolution out and spent the rest of his life relaxing on a beach, if only he could leave his body behind and fly away to that island where all his safest memories had been made.

“Where is she?!”

Something in his knee popped and Flynn grunted. Tendons and ligaments were pulled to their limits, muscle was stretched to the point of tearing apart, rope bit into his wrists and ankles. Rue du Ciel! Those three little words would make this all stop. Hot wax dripped onto his chest and his brain flashed white. _Rue due Ciel say it say it SAY IT - RUE DU CIEL._ His mouth formed the words - he couldn’t stop. He had to say _something_ and every thought about protecting Estelle was washed away by the agony.

_Just say it._

He couldn’t.

_Say it and this will be over._

Every speck of strength he had left had been devoted to not saying it, so if he caved now, he’d have nothing left.

_Estelle is the reason you’re in pain right now. She doesn’t matter.  Just say it._

But he couldn’t because - because -

_Can you think of a reason?_

Agony throbbed through his shoulders. He wasn’t supposed to say. He’d decided he wouldn’t. That was the only reason he could think of at the moment.

_SAY IT._

His body was ready to mutiny against his stubborn mind and put his mouth to work without his consent. The words were on the tip of his tongue, ready to dart out at the first chance.

“ _Sott’a lu ponte_!” Flynn’s scream cracked his voice. He thought of his mother singing to him while the sound of the sea drifted through his window. “ _Ci luce la luna!_ ”

“What is he saying?” Cumore asked. The guards shrugged.

A slap struck his face. “I told you to stick to French!”

Flynn closed his eyes and locked his mind on that room: pale yellow wallpaper lit by the moonlight, white curtains fluttering in the breeze, Mom sitting on the end of his bed and her gentle voice mingling with the waves as she stroked his hand and encouraged him to sleep. “ _In celu e stelle, une manca manc’ana. Dormi_....” He lacked the strength to sing, but he could stumble through the words like a poem.

Ropes tightened and a fresh scream ripped out of him before morphing back into the lyrics before it had a chance to spit out the address. “ _Mi frighe lu core! Un ne p-p-possu più_!” Focus on the words, nothing but the words and the smell of salty air and the memory of Corsica. He tried to put his mind in a box and lock it tight, away from his aching body and the horrors of this building. Let the song - “ _Lascia pienghje a me!”_ \- occupy his mouth while his mind went on vacation far away.

In his perfect world, there was no rack, no Cumore, no revolution, and no Estelle to condemn him to this hell. Just a song and memory, that he let his mind slip away into.


	6. Clouds Closing In

**12 March, 1794**

Estelle was playing cards in the kitchen with Rita when Yuri walked in.

“Yo, Estelle. You’ve got a visitor.”

“Eh? A… visitor?” The only people who knew where she was already lived here.

“Yeah, some rich German kid called Ioder.”

She dropped her hand of cards. “Ioder?” She leapt to her feet and ran into the front sitting room, where a young man stood with his hands behind his back, looking around at the dingy furnishing. Estelle suddenly felt self-conscious about her living conditions. She’d lived in the life of a low-class commoner for so long that seeing Ioder in his richly embroidered coat gave her a sense of awe. It was hard to believe that not so long ago, she’d lived like that, too.

“Ioder! What are you doing here?” She threw herself at him and squeezed him against her chest. She breathed in a whiff of lavender from his cologne and wondered if he was put off by the smell of kitchen grease and sweat that permeated Estelle’s life at Rue du Ciel.

Ioder eased himself away from her. “It’s good to see you again, Estellise.”

“When did you get here?” They’d switched to German, so Yuri and Rita stood by the door and watched in befuddlement. “How? Why? Oh, I have so many questions!”

“Calm down, Estellise.” Ioder smiled at her and didn’t say anything about her simple blue dress or unwashed hair. He’d always been a friend to her, and was one of the few people she’d kept in contact with after moving to France.

“What’s going on?” Rita asked. “Who’s this guy?”

Estelle turned around and pulled Ioder toward her friends. She switched back to French for Yuri and Rita’s benefit. “This is Ioder, my second cousin from Saxony. We used to play together when I was a little girl.”

Ioder nodded in greeting. “Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for welcoming me into your home.”

Yuri shrugged. “Sorry it’s not a palace up to your standards.”

“Come sit down in the kitchen.” Estelle pulled him back to the table. “Can I get you some tea?”

“That’s quite all right, thank you.”

Yuri and Rita joined them at the table and Yuri said, “So, Ioder, tell Estelle about your plan.”

“Plan?” Estelle cocked her head.

Ioder folded his hands on the table. “I’ve been following the news from France quite intently, of course. All of Europe has.”

“Oh, yeah?” Yuri leaned back and folded his hands. “I bet it’s all very exciting from the outside.”

“Interesting, to be sure,” Ioder said. “Truth be told, I’m not supposed to be here.”

Rita rolled her eyes. “Duh. You’re only at war with us.”

“Oh, yes.” Estelle frowned at him. “Did you have any trouble getting here? It must have been so dangerous.”

Ioder smiled. “I didn’t tell my parents I was coming, certainly. I came alone, with only a driver. I heard that the royal family had been arrested, but that Estellise had escaped. You’ve been the talk of the court throughout the Holy Roman Empire, Estellise.” He reached over to pat her hand. “After King Louis and Marie Antoinette were executed, I knew it wouldn’t be safe for you to remain in France.”

“Well all know _that_ ,” Rita said. “That’s why she’s in hiding with us.”

Estelle’s eyes drifted to the ceiling, toward Flynn. She knew very well that she was in danger here, and that she put her companions in danger, too. The problem was that none of them had the money to fund an emigration from France, and that attempting to flee might be more dangerous than staying put and hoping things blew over eventually.

“I know you would have had difficulty getting out on your own. That’s why I’ve been arranging passage for you on a ship bound for London.”

Estelle gasped while her friends turned their eyes on her. “You’ve… what?”

Ioder nodded. “I know a women from Dresden who married an aristocrat in Britain. Sodia has agreed to meet you at the port in London and take you to her estate in the countryside. Her husband has a trade ship departing from Calais, which will take you as a passenger. Of course, there is also the option to return to Dresden with me. I thought, though, that you would prefer to remain off the grid rather than throw yourself back into the politics of the Holy Roman Empire. I fear that you would be little more than a pawn in the Empire, and I'm especially worried about the Emperor agreeing to hand you over to the new French Republic as part of the inevitable peace treaty when this all calms down.”

“That’s… probably true.” When her parents died, she’d been passed off to her uncle. Now that her aunt and uncle had been killed, who knew where she’d be passed off to next. The Holy Roman Emperor was Antoinette’s brother; would he resent her for escaping the Tuileries when Antoinette didn’t? Who would be in charge of her? Who would arrange her inevitable marriage? The past year and a half on Rue du Ciel had been the most liberating period of her life and she hesitated going back into another gilded cage.

But then… did she want to go to England? “I… I’m not sure, Ioder. I really, really appreciate you arranging this for me, but… the thing is…. Do you remember the man I told you about in my letters?”

Ioder nodded. “Yes, that’s actually how I found you here. I remembered that you said you knew a Flynn Scifo who worked at a tavern called La Comète, so I tracked down the establishment hoping he could help me find you. Is he here?”

Yuri and Rita exchanged glances while Estelle turned her gaze to her hands. Estelle took it upon herself to explain. “Flynn… is upstairs. He was living here with us until last November….” She summarized as quickly as she could, touching on the bare bones of the story, even if not the details.

Ioder’s expression grew grave while she spoke, and when she finished, he nodded solemnly. “I see. I feel more certain than before that I made the right decision in working to evacuate you from France.”

“Yes, but… I just don’t know if I want to leave. I know things are rocky between me and Flynn right now, but I don’t know if I feel comfortable leaving him.”

“He could go with you,” Ioder said. “I’m sure Sodia wouldn’t be averse to a second guest.”

Yuri frowned. “That would require him to want to run away with Estelle, and right now that’s….”

Estelle hung her head. “Unlikely.”

“This complicates matters. The ship departs in one week from Calais. Sodia is aware that your departure is not confirmed so she won’t be surprised if you don’t come in, but her husband isn’t planning to send any more ships to France until the fighting settles down. The borders are only going to get more difficult to cross as the fighting gets worse. This may be your only chance to leave France.”

Rita crossed her arms. “Who says she wants to leave France?”

“Well, Estelle?” Yuri looked to her. “What do you want to do?”

All eyes were on her and Estelle fiddled her fingers. “Um - um - I don’t know.” If she left, she would be safe. She could live freely without fear of being recognized and executed at any minute. In England, she could stay out of the web of European politics by keeping her head down and continuing to live as a commoner. But if she left now… she might never see Flynn again, or any of her other friends. She could say she’d come back to Paris when it was safe, but that might never happen. “I think… I think I’ll have to consider this.”

“I understand. This is a major decision. It will take about three days to reach Calais from here if we take the back roads to avoid detection so you have a few days to decide.”

“Thank you for the offer, Ioder. Really, it means so much to me that you’ve gone to such trouble to help me.”

“I’ll be staying at a hotel in the city. Let me know when you’ve decided.”

* * *

 

**12 March, 1794**

Once again, Flynn woke up in a cold sweat. He shivered and rubbed his eyes with his palms, determined to wipe away tears. Never mind putting all of this behind him, he’d be happy to just sleep through the night without revisiting the Conciergerie. He hadn’t had a decent sleep since November. Flynn yawned and rolled over to take pressure off the lashes on his back.

Karol sat on his own bed and quickly looked away when Flynn noticed him. It wasn’t fast enough to hide his worried expression.

“Good morning.”

Karol folded the pages of the book on his lap. “G-good morning.”

Karol wasn’t just awkward about being caught staring; he looked actually frightened. Flynn had a sinking feeling he knew what had prompted it. He closed his eyes for a second and let out a breath. “Was I talking in my sleep?”

“Er… yeah.”

“Dare I ask what I said?”

“Uh….” Karol suddenly became highly intrigued by his fingernails. “Well, most of it was in Italian, so I don’t really know. I think just… a lot of begging and crying.”

Flynn’s gaze fixed on the ceiling. It was embarrassing to think of Karol listening to his pleading. It was bad enough that Cumore had seen him at his lowest; now he had to go scaring the kid. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. Was it, um, a bad nightmare? I mean - I mean a worse than usual nightmare?”

Flynn considered this, and then shook his head. “Not especially. I was dreaming about thumbscrews.” And sitting in a chair with his wrist lashed to the arm, unable to pull away as the iron clamps bit into his fingers and, one-by-one, turned his hands into the mangled mess he had now. All in all, not the worst thing he could dream about.

Obviously this hadn’t pacified Karol. It occurred to Flynn that his perspective on what was a normal amount of trauma might have been skewed. Karol fiddled with his hands. “Do you… uh… want to talk about it?”

Flynn had been wondering about this since he got back. One one hand, he felt the urge to sit his friends down and tell them every detail so that at least they wouldn’t be festering in his head. On the other, the humiliation of lying on the ground, crying and broken, and pleading to a bastard like Cumore was almost as bad as the physical pain, and he couldn’t bear the thought of his friends knowing any more about that than they had to. “Not really.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless you can magically make me walk again.” Flynn regretted his tone as soon as he finished. Karol was just trying to help, and there was no reason to snap at him. Flynn let out a breath. “I’m sorry, Karol. I know I’ve been a pretty terrible roommate for the last month.”

“What? No, uh, it’s ok. I mean, I understand. You’ve obviously had a lot to deal with.”

Flynn muttered, “Isn’t that the truth….”

“Hey, uh, what if you tried walking? I mean, you haven’t tried, have you?”

“I haven’t.” The only time he’d left bed was to fall off it.

“Well… it’s been a month, right? Maybe you could start trying to take a few steps. Build up your strength slowly, you know?”

That might work. He was afraid that trying to walk would be too painful, but he was also afraid of how vulnerable he felt lying here and knowing he was helpless to run if anyone came after him. Getting on his feet again would do wonders for his peace of mind. “All right. I’ll try.”

Karol left his bed and held out his hands for Flynn. “Here, you can lean on me.”

The first step was just to get upright in bed. His ribs were healing and no longer stabbed him with every breath, but the lashes and burns the covered his torso still ached as he forced his body up. Flynn swung his legs over the side of the bed and rested his bare feet - covered in taut, shiny, and rough skin from the scars - on the floorboards. Flynn reached for Karol’s hands and then pushed, clamping his teeth as knives dug into his legs. Upright, he immediately fell forward and leaned on Karol’s shoulders as fires ignited in every joint. Even leaning didn’t help too much, because his arms were equally injured and his elbows and shoulders cried out.

“Good!” Karol held Flynn’s arms and moved back, giving Flynn room to try stepping forward.

Flynn certainly didn’t feel ‘good’ as his muscles trembled and his foot slid forward. Without Karol to lean on, there was no way he’d be upright. The aches that had been fading for the past month all spiked and begged his attention. But, he _was_ upright, and Flynn clung to that piece of hope. He was standing at least partially under his own strength, which gave him hope that he would be able to walk under his own power in the coming months.

When the door suddenly opened, he jerked toward it with a flash of anxiety. This caused him to lose his balance and he toppled to the ground with a thud and a grunt.

“Flynn!” Estelle ran to him.

Flynn looked up and his heart clenched when he saw her. For a second, all he could hear was the crack of a whip and a voice ringing in his ears: _where is she?_ When she reached for him, Flynn slapped her hands away.

( _Why did you do that? She’s trying to help. She -)_

 _-_ had caused this. Frustratingly, Flynn felt he was losing his grip more now than he had in the Conciergerie, because he’d been so certain about the basic facts of life in there. Now that he was out and had so much more to think about, things were getting very confusing. It had been easy to understand that he was being tortured because of Estelle and therefor Estelle was an awful person when he’d known his future held nothing but torture day in and day out until they executed him. Now that she was actually here and trying hard to make him _not_ be in pain, the clear distinctions of good and bad were becoming muddled.

Yuri was the one who helped him up. Estelle hung back and let Yuri half-carry Flynn back to the bed. Flynn sat on the edge of the mattress, rubbing his aching knees with his palms.

“I’m sorry!” Karol directed this at Yuri and Estelle. “I was just trying to help!”

“It’s fine,” Yuri said. “It’s good for you to get out of bed, I think. How do you feel, Flynn?”

Every joint was on fire, breathing sent dull throbs through his chest, his feet prickled and stung, and a hundred minor injuries blurred in the background. “I've felt worse.” His eyes kept drifting to Estelle, but he couldn’t figure out if he wanted her to stay or get out.

“Ok, Flynn.” Yuri put his hands on his waist and stood before him. “We need to talk to you about something. Can you listen to Estelle for a few minutes?”

Flynn glanced at her again and something thrummed in his chest. He wasn’t sure if he was comfortable with her presence, but he knew how pathetic he must look when he freaked out over her merely being in the same room. “It’s fine.”

Estelle came a little closer. With her hands folded in front of her, she said, “Flynn… my cousin Ioder came to speak to me today. Do you remember me mentioning him?”

He nodded once.

“He said that he can help me get to England, where I will be safe from the revolution.”

Flynn’s eyes remained fixed on the floor, but anger gushed through him, hot and thick. _She’s going to England where she’ll be safe and sound. I spent three months in a dungeon where every day they broke me in new and exciting ways until I wanted to die but_ she _is going to England for protection. What did she ever do to deserve this? Why does she get to be coddled and protected when I had to endure so much? It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair -_ I _should be the one who got shuttled off to safety before they could do all those things to me_.

“I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to go.”

_Not decided? She has such a blissful life that she can’t even decide if she wants to be protected from people like Cumore. She has no idea what I went through. She’s considering throwing away an escape I would have killed for._

“I’m worried about leaving my friends behind… about you. Ioder said I can take you with me, if you wanted.”

_Take me? For what purpose? So I can escape the Committee of Public Safety? Too FUCKING LATE. I already have a plan for protection: I’m gonna carry a knife everywhere and if it even looks like they’re gonna arrest me again, I’ll slit my throat so that I never, ever, have to go through that again. You can’t protect me from something I’ve already been through. I don’t want to go to goddamn England when I have the perfectly nice option of death here in France._

“If I leave, I might never see you again.”

 _Good_.

 _(It’s not good; you’ll be sad if you never see her again._ )

_Why the hell would I?_

_(Because you-)_

_Don’t fucking say it._

“So I wanted to ask you, Flynn…. If you want me to stay, I will. If you want to come with me, you can. So… what do you think?”

 _(You’re so stupid. You say you want her as far away from you as possible, but you’re trembling at the notion of never seeing her again._ )

_That’s not true. I’m shaking because I’m angry. Because she gets to run away and I didn’t._

( _Then why do you feel so fearful at the prospect of her staying in Paris?_ )

_Because I want her far away!_

_(Where she’s safe._ )

_No._

Flynn turned his face to the window. “Why should I care where you go?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her deflate. Good; she shouldn't’ stay here because of him. It would be better if she left the country and went somewhere far away from Robespierre and the revolution so she wouldn’t suf-

Flynn pushed those thoughts away.

Estelle bowed her head. “I see. Thank you, Flynn.”

She left, but Yuri and Karol remained. Flynn glared at them. “Are you going to tell me I should be throwing myself at her feet?”

Yuri shook his head, looking disappointed. “Do you even remember why you were arrested in the first place?”

Flynn stubbornly stared at the wall. “I helped her. I was dumb.”

Karol stomped his feet. “You helped her for a reason, though!”

“I’m getting pretty tired of this, Flynn. You’re my friend and I want to support you, but Estelle is also my friend and I’m sick of seeing you hurt her like this.”

Fresh anger flashed. “ _I_ hurt _her_? Which of us got set on fire?!”

Yuri folded his arms. “I know you were hurt. I get it, and I’m sorry. But it doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk to someone who’s only trying to help you.”

“You don’t ‘get it’,” Flynn snarled. How could any of them ever ‘get it’? Even if he explained in detail, they would never understand. And then he’d had the gall to say ‘I’m sorry’. ‘Sorry you were tortured, Flynn - sucks to be you, right?’. How dare they tell him who he could and could not be rude to. If he wanted to be prickly toward the person who’d caused all his suffering, he damn well would be! They were lucky he’d just been unfriendly, rather than actually striking her so she could feel even an ounce of the pain he’d endured for her!

( _You wouldn’t have, though, because there’s a reason you endured it for her in the first place._ )

_Shut the hell up!_

“Why did you rescue Estelle from the Tuileries?” Yuri demanded.

( _Yeah, why did you?_ )

 _I don’t have to answer any question I don’t want to think about._ And he didn’t want to think about this one.

( _Because you know-_ )

_Stop._

_(Why won’t you just admit it?)_

Because… because….

“Why can’t you just admit it?” Yuri now, rather than the voice in the back of his head.

Because… he just… he…

“If you’re right,” Flynn mumbled to the floor, “if I did it because I… knowingly for her…. Then I did it to myself, didn’t I?”

Karol creased his brow. “Huh? What are you talking about?”

Flynn dug his crippled fingers into his knees as much as he could. “Why would I do that? Why would I knowingly and willingly make myself an enemy of the republic? If it was my choice to be t-tortured to protect her… then it’s my fault. I did this to myself. I could have prevented it, and I didn’t, and now my whole life is ruined and I have only myself to blame.”

Those words were met by silence until Yuri sighed and plopped onto the bed beside him. “You idiot. It’s not your fault at all. The blame lies solely with Cumore and the rest of the fucked up revolution.”

“Sure.”

“Do you want to know why you rescued her?”

Flynn said nothing.

“Estelle told me about this. See if this rings a bell.”

* * *

 

**27 June, 1791**

When King Louis XIV moved to Versailles over a century before, he left behind a palace in the heart of Paris. This was the Tuileries, an imposing, blocky building all pillars and tall windows sitting on the bank of the Seine. Estelle had visited it a few times in the past, and recalled evenings she thought of as mini-vacations when she and Antoinette spent the night there after attending an opera in the city. She certainly had never expect to live there full-time, and she couldn’t say she enjoyed it half as much as the every-now-and-then stays from the past.

For one, the palace was smaller but contained just as many servants and courtiers, making everything seemed cramped. The garden was a pale imitation of the splendour of the one at Versailles, and the busy city streets just beyond the windows made it difficult to sleep at night when she was used to the serenity of the countryside. There was also the disconcerting feeling that she was being watched at all times, and the knowledge that it wasn’t just her uncle’s will or court politics keeping her trapped inside, but the threat of an entire city.

They’d moved here in October, after an angry mob had marched all the way to Versailles and demanded they return to Paris. Estelle had always gotten the sense that they were somewhat prisoners after that, but the feeling had only increased now that they’d returned from the failed attempt to flee to Montmedy fortress near the German border. The National Guard - what they were calling the militia these days - had made it very clear that they weren’t to leave the palace without permission these days.

She was, at least, allowed in the courtyard. As always, her mood perked up considerably when she saw Flynn walking through the stone arch of the gate that led to the street and the square separating them from the Louvre. When Flynn reached her, he bowed and kissed her hand. They looked around to see who was watching them, and when they confirmed that no one was paying them attention, they walked a little closer together into the building. His arm brushed against hers as they walked beneath the vaulted wooden ceiling and chandelier of the main entrance hall. This was the closest that they ever got to each other ever since they’d snuck away to Antoinette’s library two years ago.

“How are you?” Flynn asked as they wandered down a hall. Polished wooden panels towered over them, broken up by oil paintings of battles or mythology. The building was rich and dark - a far cry from the white and gold splendour of Versailles. “You weren’t harmed, were you?”

“Oh! No, not at all! Don’t worry about me.” Her whole family had been escorted back to Paris under guard. Estelle was used to seeing armed guards around her, but it was a peculiar feeling to know they were guarding _against_ her rather than _for_ her. “I’m more frustrated than anything. We got as far as Varennes and then a postmaster of all things recognized my uncle based on stamps with his face! I was really excited to visit the fortress.”

Flynn looked down with a slight smile. “Is that what you’re most disappointed about? Not visiting the fortress?”

Estelle pouted. “Not entirely! Um, ok, I _was_ excited to see the fortress, but I also just… I wanted to get away from Paris, you know?”

“I can’t say I disagree with that,” Flynn said mildly. “It’s like living in the eye of the storm here.”

“Actually, no. I read that the eye of the storm is actually really calm and peaceful while the disaster swirls around it.”

“I see! I stand corrected.”

The reached a drawing room at the end of the hall and Estelle wandered to the window. She pushed the red velvet curtains aside and peered across the courtyard toward the Louvre. “So Paris isn’t like living in the eye of the storm at all. It’s like living right in the middle of a blizzard with the wind howling at all sides.” Flynn came up behind her and she felt his warmth against her back. He was so close they were almost touching… but not quite. “Flynn… I… I’m kind of scared, if I’m being honest.”

“Of the direction the country is taking?”

“I remember a couple of years ago, when the Bastille was broken into and the militia was formed. When my uncle was told about it, he looked very worried and he asked, ‘is it a revolt?’. The duke who had informed him said, ‘no, sire, it is a revolution.’ That’s when I realized just how _big_ this was getting. I could tell even then how concerned my uncle was, and things keep getting worse and worse.” Her fingers closed tighter around the curtain. “Because a revolution is different from reform, right? A revolution is about abandoning one thing in order to bring in something new, and I’m pretty sure the thing France is trying to abandon is me. Well, my family.”

“I… can’t say you’re incorrect.” Flynn spoke slowly, obviously trying not to alarm her. “I have heard people call for the abolition of the monarchy, and the king’s attempted flight to Montmedy has only made things worse, I fear. I think you’re wise to keep alert of the changing tides, though at this point I doubt you are in any significant danger.”

Estelle’s heart tremored at hearing her fears confirmed, but she appreciated that he didn’t try to pacify her with lies. Whenever she expressed doubts or fears, someone in the court was always quick to assure her it wasn’t for her to worry about and to put her faith in the king and all would be well. “I can feel the mood of the country turning against us. The people were so angry when we returned to Paris the other day - shouting and jeering. I always knew that there were some people in the country who hated the royal family by principle, but it feels like more and more people want us dead, and it’s reaching a tipping point where now the _majority_ of the country wants me dead. It’s… disconcerting.”

“I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but I don’t think anyone wants _you_ dead, specifically.”

She sighed. “No. Just my aunt and uncle. I’m too insignificant to wish death upon.”

“You’re not insignificant.” His fingers brushed the back of her hands. “Not to me, at least.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “But perhaps I would be better off being insignificant. I really am scared, Flynn. Things are heating up and I feel like I’m standing at the top of a tower with an angry mob hacking away at the supports below. What happens if an angry mob comes here next time? They already forced us into house arrest in Paris, where else will they send us next time except to prison or death?”

Flynn stared out the window rather than at her, and Estelle knew he shared her fears.

“I can’t tell you not to worry,” he said carefully. “You certainly have much to worry about. For what it’s worth, I swear to do what I can to protect you. I don’t know what one man could do in the face of a mob, but I am a member of the National Guard so I’m not completely useless in a fight.”

She turned to lean her hip against the windowsill and look up at him. “So you’d be my guardian angel?”

Flynn turned his head down to her. “You could almost say I’m protecting myself as well as you. It would greatly grieve me to see you come to harm. So whatever influence I can push in the National Guard, or if that fails, whatever I can do individually to defend you from a riot, I will do.”

“Thank you, Flynn.” As she had so many times before, Estelle struggled with the urge to reach for him, hold his hand, kiss his cheek, press herself against his chest. At this point, the court was far too unstable to withstand the scandal that would cause if they were seen. “I really wish there was something I could do for you. I hate feeling like a burden on you.”

“I nearly died of boredom this morning while sitting through a lecture, yet here I am resurrected from a conversation with you. I can thank you for that, at least.”

Estelle giggled. “I hardly think that’s comparable.”

Flynn looked around the room and down the adjoining halls to make sure no one was looking. He kissed his fingers, then rested them gently on her cheek. “Really, _cara mia_ , I just enjoy being with you. These last few years when you invited me into your world of palaces and balls have been like a dream. I haven’t felt this happy since I left Corsica. Eventually, the revolution will come to an end. Wherever we are then, you can pay me back with your continued company.”

The sound of approaching footsteps caused him to yank his hand back and clasp them together. Estelle turned in time to see her uncle enter the drawing room, followed by a small train of courtiers and servants. Flynn stiffened and dropped his head, eyes fixed on the floor.

“Ah. Estelle.”

“Good afternoon, Uncle.” Estelle curtsied and smiled, which he didn’t return. Louis so rarely smiled these days.

“Who is…? Oh, is this the Italian lawyer you’ve so often mentioned?”

Estelle nodded. “Yes, Flynn Scifo.” She considered correcting, ‘Corsican law student,’ but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

“I see. Well, Flynn Scifo, my niece speaks quite highly of you. You are not a member of the aristocracy, correct?”

Flynn, who had never been addressed by a king before and was clearly finding it hard to breathe, continued looking at the floor as he said, “Th-that is correct, _Votre Majesté_.”

“Hm. With the way things are, the future may be looking brighter for you than me. What strange times.”

Flynn glanced sideways at Estelle and scrambled to think of a response. “Uh - um - i-indeed, sire.”

“Very well. Have a nice afternoon, Estelle.”

“You too!” she chirped, though she had a feeling nothing Louis had to deal with today would be pleasant.

As he left, she heard him mutter, “At least some people still know how to treat royalty.”

* * *

 

**12 March, 1794**

Estelle sat on her bed and rested her chin on her arms as she leaned on the windowsill. She’d pushed the window open to let the chilly air shock her eyes out of crying. She hadn’t cried since the day Flynn arrived, and she was determined not to. Below, a stray cat prowled the street, delicately stepping around pools of muddy water as the snow melted into the dirt road.

Their house here was dirty, cold, and crowded. They all worked hard to keep La Comète running and her fingers were frequently pruned from washing dishes. Life here was so different from her childhood of castles and palaces, but… it was homey. She loved the friends she’d made here, and a simple life wasn’t so bad. She would miss Yuri, and Rita, and everyone else if she went to England, and that wasn’t even starting on the mess with Flynn. He had made it very clear that he had no interest in going to England with her, and she’d watched his face while she’d explained the situation and seen how little he cared if she left and never came back. He probably _wished_ for her to leave and never see him again.

That thought made her have to fight off tears again. She’d hoped that Flynn’s rejection of her would be short-lived, but it had been a month now and he still wanted nothing to do with her. Perhaps this would be a permanent situation. It was just so… so _frustrating_. Flynn’s feeling for her had been so strong, they led him down a path to ultimately forgetting them. Estelle trailed a finger through snow built up in the corner of the window. She liked this house, but if Flynn was going to stay here - and of course he would; he was in no shape to move out - perhaps it would be better for both of them if she left and moved on.

Someone knocked on the door with a few sharp raps. Even this was so different from Versailles, where knocking was considered uncouth and the proper thing to do was scratch a door with your pinkie until the person inside heard you. Estelle had never liked that custom, because it reminded her of being a cat. “Come in.”

It was Yuri. “How you holding up?”

Estelle took a deep breath of frigid air to clear her hair and then twisted around. “I’m all right, really.”

“So… have you decided yet what you want to do?”

“I… no.” She studied her bedspread. “I’m really torn. I want to stay here, with Flynn and the others and you, too. But, maybe Flynn would be better off if I left him alone.”

“Only you can decide. Don’t base it entirely on what Flynn wants, though. He’s still not in his right mind, remember. I just had a talk with him about why he’s so determine to blame you, and he said it’s because if he doesn’t, he’d have to blame himself for being tortured.”

Estelle lifted her head and dropped her chin. “He - what? Oh, no, how can he think that? How could he ever blame himself for the things the Committee did to him?” She leapt to her feet. “I need to tell him-”

Yuri grabbed her shoulders before she could rush out the door. “Whoa, slow down. What do you think you’re going to say to him that I didn’t?”

“I… he….” She slumped in his grip. “I don’t know.”

“Let’s go for a walk and get some fresh air.”

Twenty minutes later, the pair of them were strolling up the main street toward the river. Estelle realized it had been weeks since she’d left Rue du Ciel. In the past she’d gone out regularly to attend executions in case she saw Flynn, but now that they had him home, she only ever went between the house and La Comète. Spring was beginning to creep into the city, though it was early enough that the only sign was the roads turning brown with mud rather than white from snow. It was a relief to reach the cobbles on the main street.

“I’m going to try a new recipe at La Comète.” Yuri had his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket because he hadn’t bought mittens, and mud splattered the hem of his trousers. They hadn’t mentioned Flynn since leaving the house, and Estelle enjoyed the break from her daily worries. “A kind of broccoli souffle. Cheap to make, but it looks fancy.”

“That sounds nice. Hopefully it will draw in more customers, too.”

“Yeah, that would be good. We’re doing all right, though. I mean, considering the general state of the city, I can’t really complain.”

They paused when they reached Pont Neuf and Estelle leaned over the side to watch debris float through the green water. Not far upstream and on the other side of the bank, she could see a crowd of people gathered in the Place de la Révolution. Her heart sank as she wondered who was being executed today, and what the chances were that the victim had actually done anything warranting execution. Not wanting to stand here and listen to the distant cheers, she kept walking across the bridge.

She and Yuri turned once they were on the Île de la Cité. Estelle had loved coming to the island with Flynn during the year they’d spent together at Rue du Ciel. The city had been founded here back when it was little more than a medieval village and she could almost feel the history dug into the ground. It had lost its charm recently, though. She and Yuri drew to a stop when they walked past the front of the Conciergerie. It had once been a royal residence, but Estelle couldn’t imagine happy memories like her ones from Versailles coming from this place. When she looked up at the stone towers, all she could picture were the scars that littered Flynn’s body. Yuri stood silently beside her, no doubt thinking about the same thing.

Their reverie was broken by a snide voice. “And what are you two looking at?” The speaker was a thin man in the uniform of the Committee of General Security.

Yuri rested a hand on his hip. “Is looking a crime?”

To be honest, Estelle couldn’t keep track of what was and wasn’t a crime these days, so she’d rather Yuri not push his luck.

“Loitering outside a prison might be,” the officer said. “And what is a healthy young man like yourself doing here, anyway?” He smiled like a cat closing in on a mouse. “Perhaps you should come with me and explain to the Tribunal why you didn’t respond to the draft.”

Yuri failed to fall into the role of cowering rodent. “I’m married. You’d have me abandon my wife? Leave her behind to run my business?”

The man's smile slipped. “Ah… true, women are not fit to operate businesses.”

Estelle’s lips cracked but she held back her indignant response. Luckily, the man wasn’t looking at her because his eyes were fixed on Yuri’s face.

“Don’t I know you?”

Yuri shrugged. “Not that I can recall.”

The man puffed his chest out a little. “I am Capitaine Cumore of the Committee of General Security. And you are?”

Estelle couldn’t keep the shock off her face as her eyes whizzed to Cumore’s. She’d never seen him before, but of course she knew his name. This was _him_ , the man who’d taken Flynn away and orchestrated his suffering. It was all she could do not to slap him.

Unfortunately, Cumoe noticed her reaction as well. “Your little friend seems to be familiar with me.” He peered around Yuri to inspect Estelle’s face. “You also appear familiar… what’s your name, _mademoiselle?_ ”

Estelle’s lips parted before she knew what to say, but Yuri wrapped an arm around her shoulders and took over. “My name’s Luc Gaumont, and this is my little sister Célia. We’ve heard of a Capitaine Cumore, the great commander in the Committee who’s made so many arrests. She was just surprised to meet someone so legendary.”

Estelle thought Yuri was laying it on a little thick, but Cumore lapped it up. “Ah, yes, I see, of course.”

He still had his eyes on Estelle, though. She could feel them boring into her and she wondered if royalty was visible if you looked hard enough. She was very glad she’d bothered pinning her tricolour cockade to her hat today, just in case.

“Are you quite certain I’ve never met you before, though? I’m sure I’ve seen you. Come to think of it, you somewhat resemble Madame Royale….”

Yuri’s arm tightened around her at the mention of her young cousin. “O-oh?” Estelle covered his mouth and giggled. “I’ve never heard that before. I’m quite sure we haven’t met, though. I’m certain I would have remembered a man so handsome and renown as you.”

This effectively distracted him from his train of thought. Thoroughly chuffed, Cumore nodded a few times. “That’s perfectly understandable.”

“Excuse us.” Yuri began pulling Estelle away. “We need to be going. Thank you for your service to our country.”

They left the street as quickly as they could without it looking like they were running away. As soon as they were around the corner, Yuri let go of Estelle’s shoulders and she shook herself like a dog out of a river.

“That was _him,_ wasn’t it? The same Cumore Flynn mentions. The one who did all of that to him.”

Yuri nodded, grim-faced. “It was, and honestly I wish you weren’t here so I could give him a piece of my mind.”

“You should have, anyway.” She glared at the cobbles on their way down the island.

“Not with you here.”

Estelle balled her hand into a fist. “Then I should have done it for you! He’s so awful. I just want to _punch_ him!” She smashed her fist into her palm to demonstrate. “Why are you laughing?!”

Yuri patted her back. “I’m not sure if Monsieur Cumore would find you all that intimidating. That was some smooth ass-kissing you gave him, though. Probably saved your neck.”

Estelle wrinkled her nose at the memory. “I wish I hadn’t. He’s just so… _ugh_.”

“Hey.” Yuri rested a hand on her shoulder. “We beat him, didn’t we? He was all set to execute Flynn, and then we rescued a whole cartload of prisoners from right under his nose. I bet he’s still fuming about that.”

“I… suppose that’s something.” They came out in a broad paved square and Estelle stopped to gaze up at the twin towers of Notre Dame. The doors were shut, and most people walked by without looking at it. “Yuri, do you think we can go in?”

Yuri surveyed the area, making sure Cumore was nowhere to be seen. “Probably. Let’s not be too visible about it, though.”

They meandered across the square to the far corner rather than making a beeline for the doors, and then stuck to the shadow of the cathedral as they skirted its front toward the entrance. When she stepped into the alcove in front of the centre door, she felt the eyes of every tiny angel carved into the stone looking down at her and wondered if the entire square was staring at her slipping into the door. She let out a breath of relief when Yuri shut the door behind himself and they were left alone in the cavernous hall. None of the torches had been lit, so the only light available was filtered through the massive stained glass panels high in the walls.

Yuri passed her and wandered down the aisle of wooden pews. He put a hand to his mouth and called, “ _Bonjour_?!” The words bounced around the pillars and up to the domed ceiling far above. He turned back to her. “Looks like nobody’s home.”

Estelle didn’t need to call out to feel the cathedral’s emptiness. It was readily apparent from the statue of Lady Liberty sitting at an alter where the Virgin Mary ought to be, and wooden skeleton of beams that still sat at the front, where a fake mountain had been built last fall holding busts of philosophers. Her fingers trailed along the edge of the pews as she wandered down the aisle. The government said this was no longer a cathedral; it was a Temple of Reason, where they could worship a generic Supreme Being and the glory of logic. She’d read about the Festival of Reason last fall in horror - to think that such debauchery had taken place inside a church! It was heartbreaking to see such a beautiful building abandoned.

At the front of the church, Estelle sat on a pew. The view in front of her was a heartbreaking display of rejection and destruction, where the crosses had been torn down and statues broken. She shifted her gaze to her left, to the circular stained glass window made of gleaming blue and purple. At least the looters hadn’t smashed the windows and their intricate depictions of biblical figures. Yuri came up behind her and leaned on the pew. “Did you ever come here?” Estelle asked without looking away from the window. “Before the revolution, I mean. When it was still a proper church.”

“Nah. I was never big on the whole church scene.”

“Really? Not at all?”

“I’m pretty sure my mother had me baptized when I was a baby, but that’s about it. Why? Are you?”

“Hm… I went to the chapel every Sunday with my family. It was just what we did. The little chapel in the castle I grew up in, and then the chapel in Versailles. They were always beautiful, but I had read about the mighty cathedrals that took centuries to build and always wished to attend a service in one at least once, just to see it. This is my first time inside a great cathedral like this, and it’s… ruined.”

Yuri craned his neck to look around the deserted church. “Not too different from the rest of France, then.”

She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Yuri, what do you think I should do?”

“About leaving? Tough choice. We’ll miss you if you go, but I can’t help thinking about Cumore just now. He came pretty close to recognizing you.”

“I know. If he had, you would have been arrested and killed, too. In fact, he’d probably start torturing you to get you to tell him where Flynn is, so he can finish the job and behead all of us.” She studied the hands folded in her lap. As long as she stayed in Paris, she was dangerous to all of her friends. If she was ever discovered, anyone who was caught sheltering her would be killed. This wasn’t just about whether she was willing to risk it; she had her friends to consider, too.

Estelle gazed around the empty church. Not too long ago, the Catholic church had been one of the most powerful organizations in France, second only to the king. Now, it was as impotent as the _ancien régime._ Most of the statues of Judean kings that had once lined the front facade of Notre Dame had been torn down and beheaded - a grim reminder of what the revolutionaries wanted to do to anyone who represented the old regime. There was no longer a place in France for Catholic cathedrals or orphaned princesses. “Did you know,” Estelle said idly, “that in almost every other church across the country, they took down the church bells and melted the brass to make cannons?”

Yuri snorted. “Everything you need to know about the state of France in one sentence. God, this country’s a mess.”

“I think…” Estelle spoke slowly as she put her thoughts into words, “that the general public has made it pretty clear that royalty is no longer welcome here. For a little while, Antoinette hoped that there would be a way to restore the old order, but I really don’t see that happening now. And then, France isn’t my country. I like it here, and I’m very fond of France, but I can’t say that I feel a personal attachment to it. The only reasons I have for staying are, well… you guys.” She looked up at Yuri, but he was silently letting her mull through this on her own. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you or Rita or any of the others… or Flynn.” Her voice caught for a second, but she powered on. “But I also don’t want any of you to be hurt. If Cumore had recognized me today….” She shuddered and squeezed her eyes for a second, then pressed her fists to her forehead. “I just couldn’t bear to see what happened to Flynn happen to you, too. As long as I’m with you, you’re in danger. And as long as I’m at Rue du Ciel… Flynn isn’t comfortable. I’m just causing problems for people, j-just like I caused Flynn to be-”

“Hey.” Yuri grabbed her wrist and Estelle turned her eyes to his concerned face. “You didn’t cause anything. It’s not your fault that people want to kill you, and it’s not your fault that Flynn wanted to protect you.”

“I… right.” She breathed deeply and rubbed her eyes - _no more crying_. Estelle forced herself to shift all the guilt she could onto Cumore.

“I won’t tell you what to do, but don’t base your decision on feeling like you’re responsible for what happened to Flynn. They still would have arrested him even if you had left the country right after running away.”

“Yes. You’re right. But _you_ will only arrested if you’re caught with me, since no one knows you’re involved yet. So if I stay, then it would be my fault. I can’t let that happen. I can’t put all of my friends in danger based on the silly hope that Flynn will snap out of it and run away with me soon enough.”

“So, have you decided then?”

Estelle rose from the pew and ran her hands down her skirt. She let her eyes fall on the immaculate stained glass window, sitting protected from the destruction below. If Estelle stayed down here in the thick of the revolution, she - and everyone she cared about - would share the same fate as the smashed and beheaded statue of Mary. “Yes. I’m going to leave France.”


	7. Smoke, Blood, and Bone

**17 March, 1794**

Yuri was peeling potatoes at the table when Judith entered the kitchen. She set a bucket of water from the public fountain on the floor by the stove and then turned to watch him.

“I’ve never seen anyone look so grumpy about potatoes.”

Yuri sliced the final piece off of one into the bucket at his feet. “I’m not grumpy.”

“It’s a sin to lie, you know.” She took a seat at the table to Yuri’s right. “Are you upset about Estelle?”

“I’m upset that someone is interrogating me when I’m just trying to get these potatoes ready for the dinner rush tonight. Where is she, anyway?”

“Upstairs with Rita, I believe. She said she was packing, but it’s not like she has very many personal possessions.”

“Hm.” Ioder would be here soon, and then Estelle was leaving. Why did it have to be England, of all places? Estelle wasn’t properly French, so she didn’t understand that she was going to the worst country in the world. “Maybe I should pack her something to eat. She won’t be able to find any edible food once she arrives.”

“You want her to stay, don’t you?”

Yuri hesitated. He was about to pick up another potato, but instead he put down his knife and looked at Judith. “It doesn’t matter what I want. The National Assembly killed every adult member of her family. She’s not safe here.” It was good that she was going. He’d miss her, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about her.

“But it would be better if she wasn’t going by herself?”

Yuri met her eyes and didn’t have to say anything for his thoughts to read loud and clear. Flynn ought to be going with her. He wasn’t safe here, either, but the rest of them didn’t have the resources to take him out of the country and he was hardly in any condition to go anywhere by himself. Leaving with Estelle was the only foreseeable way to get out of the country, and he refused to do that because it meant going with her. All this was on top of the fact that Flynn should be going with Estelle purely because they were supposed to do things together. “It’s not really Flynn’s fault he’s acting like a moron. I just wish he’d snap out of it sooner rather than later.”

Judith rested a hand on his. “I think Flynn will come back to his senses eventually. It’s only been a month, and he endured quite a lot.”

“We don’t have time for that, though. Estelle is leaving in an hour. Who knows when it’ll be safe for her to return to Paris? If that ever even happens. I hate sending her away thinking Flynn hates her. She’s going to be miserable in England.”

Her thumb rubbed his hand. “I’m upset for Estelle, too. I don’t like to think of her being so alone after everything she’s lost. I’m afraid we’ve already exhausted our abilities with Flynn, though. I don’t know how many more stories we can tell him.”

“I think it _is_ working, but too slowly. He’s starting to crack; I can see it on his face. It’s not going nearly fast enough to affect Estelle leaving today, though.”

“Yes… telling him another story about how he used to feel about her probably isn’t going to change things in an hour.”

No, telling him stories wouldn’t. Yuri’s mind raced to come up with something that might make a difference, and then landed on a possible solution. “Maybe… I have an idea.” He stood up so fast the chair almost fell over. “Do you mind finishing the potatoes for me?”

“Was all this just a ploy to pawn off your chores on me?”

“I’m nefarious.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Yuri hurried upstairs, knocked quickly, and then entered without waiting for a response. Flynn was alone in the room, lying on his side and inspecting the far wall. He jolted when Yuri burst and Yuri took a moment to feel guilty for startling him.

“Hey. You awake?”

“Yes.” Flynn gingerly shifted himself into a mostly-upright position leaning on the headrest.

“We need to talk.”

“What now?”

Yuri sat on the foot of the bed. He averted his eyes from one of Flynn’s scarred feet poking out under the blanket, because he didn’t want to lose his resolve to be tough on him. “Estelle is leaving in just under an hour.”

Flynn turned his head away from Yuri. “Good.”

“You really believe that?”

There was a long pause before he answered and Yuri could only wonder at the internal turmoil in Flynn’s mind. “I don’t care.”

“Why did you rescue her from the Tuileries?”

A crease formed between Flynn’s eyes. “I’m getting pretty sick of people interrogating me. Are you going to start flogging me when I don’t answer, too?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“So what if I am?”

“It’s time for another story, Flynn.”

He rolled his eyes. “Another?”

“Yeah. But we’re gonna do it a little different. This time, _you_ are going to tell the story.”

Flynn’s frown turned to confusion. “You want one of my stories? They aren’t pleasant.”

“No, I want you to tell me about the afternoon of August 10th, 1792.”

His frown turned tighter. “You know what happened.”

“Sure. But I want to hear it from you. Tell me the full story of how you rescued Estelle from the Tuileries.”

Flynn glared at him for a few long seconds, then muttered, “Fine.”

* * *

 

**10 August, 1792**

It was hard to see through the clouds of thick white smoke that hung over the square and filled his throat with the taste of gunpowder, but Flynn spotted Yuri and Judith standing in a corner across from the main gate to the Tuileries courtyard. They watched the chaos from the relative shelter of one of the buildings on the opposite side of the Place du Carrousel, the square between the palace and the Louvre. Flynn coughed as he ran through a cloud of smoke and the crack of a musket not too far away made him regret running here straight from the university and not changing into clothing more acceptable to the mob of angry _sans-culottes_ fighting at the palace. They prided themselves on dressing sans-breeches and stockings, and Flynn worried that formal clothing painted a target on his back.

Yuri twisted into Flynn’s direction when he heard the footsteps and only lowered his pistol when he recognized Flynn’s face. “Look who finally got out of school.”

Flynn wiped his eyes; the smoke of canons he’d run through had made them water. “Class was cancelled. What’s the situation?” He had to shout to be heard over the screaming and the booms of rifles.

“It’s certainly not good.” Yuri kept his gaze on the mayhem just through the front gate. In the Place du Carrousel, lines of militiamen from the National Guard organized themselves. The arching stone gate led into the courtyard of the Tuileries Palace, where the Swiss Guards, hired to defend the monarchy when King Louis could no longer trust his own people, were locked in combat with a mob of both National Guardsmen and angry commoners.

Flynn had let himself believe that the talk of assaulting the palace he’d heard for the past few days was an exaggeration. This was all to do with Austria and Prussia, as far as Flynn knew. The war was not going France’s way. Foreign armies were marching toward Paris, and when they arrived, they would gladly restore the king and queen to their rightful place as absolute monarchs to maintain the status quo of royalty across Europe. ‘Traitor’ was the word Flynn had most often heard flung at Louis, Marie Antoinette, and anyone else involved with the monarchy. The royals supported the foreign invaders for their own gain, so the closer the foreign armies got to Paris, the more determined Parisians came to getting rid of their monarchs once and for all.

Flynn had been working on a paper for school when he heard the bells ringing across town at midnight to signal danger. A quick discussion with the other students in his building confirmed that this had to do with another riot, which was far from an uncommon occurrence in Paris these days, so he’d gone back to his paper. Hours later, he’d woken up this morning to hear that a mob had been clamouring outside the palace since midnight, and that the National Guard was no longer taking orders from the National Assembly, as demonstrated when they murdered their former commander.

Flynn had taken a moment to reflect on how out of control the situation had become when his first reaction to hearing that someone’s head was being carried through the streets on a pike was to say, “What, _again_?”

He wondered if he should report for duty. After all, he was officially a member of the National Guard, but if they’d gone mutinous and killed their commander, he would have to put some thought into whether he wanted to continue supporting them. Flynn had specifically joined with the provision that he was _against_ further violence, and he couldn’t think of any justification for putting someone’s head on a pike. Considering he had no real stake in what happened to anyone at the Tuileries, he put it to the back of his mind and went to class -

* * *

 

 

**17 March, 1794**

“Stop.” Yuri held up a hand. “I told you I want the full story.”

“That _was_ the full story, if you’d let me finish.”

Yuri glared at Flynn. “Oh, really? Is that what you thought at the time? That you had no stake in what happened at the Tuileries? You weren’t concerned about anyone there?”

“I-”

“Don’t give me your revised version. Tell me how you _really_ felt that day.”

Flynn glowered and breathed deeply, but then resumed his story with some new details.

* * *

 

**10 August, 1792**

Flynn wondered if he should report for duty. After all, he was officially a member of the National Guard, but if they’d gone mutinous and killed their commander, he would have to put some thought over whether he wanted to continue supporting them. Flynn had specifically joined with the provision that he was _against_ further violence, and he couldn’t think of any justification for putting someone’s head on a pike. And then there was Estelle, sitting inside Tuileries Palace and no doubt terrified. He wanted to go to her, but what could he do? The situation, as he heard it, was that the Swiss Guard was lined up like a wall in front of the palace and no one could go in or out. All he could do if he went over there was stand outside and wait for everything to blow over.

A classmate who lived in the same building had called out to him and asked if he was going to stand there all day. Reluctantly realizing that there was nothing he could do for Estelle, Flynn took off for his university. He couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt as he walked to school, and he wondered if he wouldn’t be so quick to rationalize his impotence if he didn’t have an important paper to hand in.

Flynn struggled to pay attention in lectures that morning, but luckily the rest of the class was similarly distracted. No one could stop talking about the growing mob at the Tuileries, what would happen if the Prussian army reached Paris, whether the king was a traitor for supporting the foreign army or if _they_ were the traitors for not supporting the king. When the distant boom of a canon startled the class, their professor called the lecture off and urged everyone to go home and stay indoors.

Instead of following that advice, Flynn took off running. He sprinted along the Seine, his lungs burning from the heat of summer as he panted and pushed himself onward. Ahead, white smoke drifted into the sky and he kicked himself for believing this would blow over. He crossed the river at Pont Royal and came running down the other side only to stop and gape at the chaos unfolding around the palace.

“The king’s not even there,” Yuri said as the three of them huddled on the perimeter of the fighting. “The royal family fled to the Hôtel de Ville early this morning.”

“Where the National Assembly meets?” Flynn asked. “I suppose they were hoping for sanctuary.” Relief swelled through his chest; Estelle wasn’t here. He wasn’t sure what safety the National Assembly would provide in the long run, but at least she wasn’t in the heart of this battle. “But why is there still fighting?” Flynn winced as a scream peeled across the square, followed by more musket shots.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Judith said. “For some reason the king hasn’t told the guards to stop defending the palace.”

There was a crunch and a cheer and Flynn watched as the heavy wooden doors were forced open and the crowd poured into the building. He wondered how many servants and courtiers were still inside, and whether the mob would care if they weren’t royal before bringing their kitchen knives and pitchforks down. He longed to stop it, but a lone unarmed man trying to stop this would be like putting a pebble up to stop a flood.

Flynn asked, “Where did all these soldiers come from? They’re not all from the National Guard.”

Yuri shook his head. “They came up from Marseilles. I was fighting against them this morning with the National Guard, but after the king left things got muddled and now I think we’re on the same side against the Swiss. I decided I wasn’t going to keep fighting when I didn’t even know who the enemy was or what we were fighting for, so Judy and I have been sitting this one out.”

A silhouette ran toward them through the smoke and Yuri once again raised his pistol. This time, Raven burst into view, panting and and coughing. “There you guys are!” He leaned on his knees and struggled to catch his breath. “I was afraid you kids had joined the militia attackin’ the palace.”

“Absolutely not.” Flynn folded his arms, close to offended that Raven would even suggest it. “I told you from the beginning. I’m in this for reform and democracy, not rioting and violence. I’m not going to storm into a palace full of civilians.”

Raven caught his breath and straightened up. “Yeah, about that…. Ok, I just came from the Hôtel de Ville. It’s a real madhouse over there, too.”

Judith raised her eyebrows. “The fighting spread that far?”

He shook his head. “Nah, nothin’ like that. Just political fightin’, which I almost think is worse. The king’s in a real tizzy, but he doesn’t know who he can trust. It took me ages ta figure out what this is even about.”

“Explain faster, old man.” Yuri hadn’t put his pistol away this time, just in case.

“I was tryin’ ta find out why the king’s kept his guards fightin’ all this time, and it turns out that his niece is still in there.”

Flynn’s heart skipped a beat. “Princess Estelle? What? Why? How?”

“From what I gather, they sent her over first with the Madame Royal and the Dauphin - they wanted her ta escort their little kiddies out. Then Louis and Marie Antoinette went over, but they found out that Estelle had gone back because she was worried about her lady’s maid and wanted ta help her get out, too. But seein’ as the National Guard no longer seems ta give a rat’s ass about the royal family, there’s no way for her ta get out without cuttin’ through all this fightin’.”

Flynn felt sick. This was what Estelle had been afraid of. She’d told him as much last summer, and then he’d promised to do whatever he could to protect her. What had he done this morning when the mob she’d always been afraid of turned up at her door? Gone to class. “ _Cazzo_ ,” Flynn swore. He imagined a throng of screaming soldiers bearing down on her with their muskets and cutlasses and his blood turned to ice at the mere thought of the outcome. “I’m going to help her.”

“How?” Yuri asked.

Flynn’s eyes darted across the palace, searching for inspiration. He slowly shook his head as he did so. “I don’t have time to think of a complicated plan. I’m going to break in there, find Estelle, and get her out. Then… take her to her family at the National Assembly?”

Raven’s grimace said it all. “When I left, they were discussin’ gettin’ rid of the monarchy and how it would probably be necessary ta imprison the royals for now.”

This day kept getting worse and worse. He couldn’t just hand Estelle over to a group that wanted to lock her up for the crime of having royal blood. “Then I’ll take her… um….” His first thought was back to his place, but that was hardly secure. He wasn’t close enough with any of his neighbours to trust them with Estelle’s life, and if a princess went missing, finding her whereabouts would become a matter of utmost importance.

“We’ll take her,” Judith said. “Karol and Rita can be trusted. We have the space. We’ll keep her hidden on Rue du Ciel for as long as necessary.”

“Really?” A weight lifted from Flynn’s chest now that a solution had been presented. “I can’t thank you enough. Hm, but there’s a chance we’ll be followed when we leave the palace. I don’t know if I can get her out without being seen. I can’t lead anyone back to your place.”

Yuri nodded. “Right. You’ll need to be a bit sneaky, but I think we can work something out.”

Ten minutes later, the group scattered. Yuri and Judith left to make preparations, Raven needed to find the new commander of the militia and figure out what was even going on, and Flynn was running through lingering clouds of smoke toward the palace. He had a pistol from Yuri, but that seemed woefully underpowered in the face of all the muskets and swords. The courtyard wasn’t home to violence anymore, because the fighting had moved inside the building. Flynn had to leap over corpses to get to the entrance and he didn’t have time to wonder if the blood he was splashing through was French or Swiss.

Once inside, the enclosed walls trapped the screaming and gunshots and Flynn struggled to think clearly. Sung words made it through the smoke, and over the din of battle he could just make out lyrics calling the citizens to arms to march against tyranny. Where was Estelle? His best guess was that she’d gone back to her personal chambers to find her lady’s maid, and hopefully she’d barricaded herself inside. Though he absolutely shouldn’t, Flynn did know where her bedroom was, having been there before. It had only been once and he had stood in the doorway stammering about propriety, but at least it meant he knew to run up the curving marble staircase in the main entry. He tried not to look at the bodies collapsed on the stairs, or the blood trickling down the steps. Screams and the clash of steel reverberated through the high-ceilinged room and his nostrils were assaulted by a mix of gunpowder and blood. It reminded him of the Bastille. That day had been similarly confusing and dangerous, and had been his first experience with fighting. It was a wonder he hadn’t been killed, and he hoped his luck would hold throughout today.

At the top of the stairs, a young man with blood on his face and a sword in his hand charged at Flynn with a shout. No doubt he mistook Flynn for a resident of the palace with his clothing, and that blade was aimed at his neck. Without taking time to think, Flynn swerved to she side, grabbed the man’s arm, and used his momentum to send him crashing down the stairs. A gunshot nearby was almost enough to drown out the crack and crunch of the man’s neck as he toppled face-first down the stairs. Almost.

Buzzing with adrenaline, Flynn took off. Everywhere he went, he had to dodge swords from the National Guard, the _sans-culottes_ , the militia from Marseilles, the Swiss Guards, and terrified palace residents and servants, none of whom thought he was on their side. Every burst of a musket sent a cloud of smoke into the air, which failed to dissipate in the enclosed rooms. It was like running through a burning building with all the smoke, which made it difficult for the combatants to even tell at whom they were shooting. The only thing that kept him going through this hell was the thought of Estelle and the knowledge that however bad it might be in here, a future where she’d perished would be a thousand times worse.

In a drawing room, Flynn stepped on something soft and bulky and fell to the ground. His pistol skittered out of his hand across the tiled floor already streaked with blood. The only other residents of the room were locked in a battle in which one man held a sword and the other a wooden end table. With them safely occupied with each other, Flynn looked back to see what he’d stepped on and his stomach lurched at the sight of a boy no older than sixteen, his chest coated in blood from gunshot. He was clearly dead. This wasn’t like the Bastille at all, Flynn realized. On that day, only soldiers were killed. Across the room, the man with the table screamed as the sword-bearer got past his defenses and slashed into his chest. Flynn jerked his head around in time to see the man, a servant based on his clothing, fall to the ground.

The one with the sword - and Flynn couldn’t even parse which of the numerous factions he belonged to at this point - turned now to Flynn and raised his sword high. Fresh red rivulets ran toward the hilt. “ _Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!_ ”

Flynn recognized that promise to soak the fields with impure blood as a line from the song the people from Marseilles kept singing, and also recognized that the impure blood to be spilled was his own. The man charged at him and Flynn scrambled for his pistol. He was certain he would the bite of the blade at any second when a loud crash erupted close by and the swordsman fell to the ground. For a second he thought he’d been saved from death by a sword only to be shot by the musketeer who had surely arrived, but then he realized the swordsman was still moving among the shards of a shattered vase.

“Flynn!” Estelle stood in the doorway, a second vase in hand and ready to throw, blood splattered across her yellow dress. “He’s getting up!”

Flynn closed the distance to his gun, pointed at the man’s head, and added more smoke to the room with a bang. He tucked the pistol in his belt; he’d reload it later. For now, he sprang to his feet and ran to Estelle. “What are you doing here?!”

“I was going to ask you that!” She let the vase drop and it cracked into two pieces on the ground. She saw his eyes dart across her bloodied dress. “I’m ok. It’s not mine.”

Flynn grabbed her and pulled her against his chest just to relish how warm and alive she was. The last time he’d held her like this, they’d been dancing in a private library in Versailles. He could feel her frantic heartbeat, but then his own was running wild so it was hard to differentiate. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’m sorry, _cara mia_.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I promised to protect you, but I was in class and I had no idea the situation here was this bad and-”

“Flynn, it’s ok.” She pulled away from him to look up at his face. “Please, can we just leave?”

“Yes, of course. Where’s your maid? The one you came back for?”

Her face said it all before she even opened her mouth. “I - she - _oh, Flynn_.” She buried her face in his chest once more. “I was with her in a drawing room. We put a chair in front of the door to try to keep people out. We were in there all morning, and we even thought of climbing out the window but the drop was too far. But then - only ten minutes ago, I think - some soldiers kicked the door open and managed to get in. They dragged us into the hallway and made us kneel on the ground. I don’t think they knew who I was but I was scared to tell them in case that made it worse. But then they - oh, Flynn - they cut off Mariette’s head with a sword right there. Only it didn’t take just one strike so they kept h-hacking and she was screaming at first and - and - so much blood - and then she was dead and I knew they were going to do it to _me_ next.”

Her words kept speeding up and Flynn almost couldn’t understand her, smothered as she was both by his body and the cries hogging her throat. “But then some other soldiers came running down the hall and they stopped and said, ‘What are you doing?! We’re not supposed to kill the women!’ The ones who killed Mariette seemed really disappointed and they kicked me to the ground and said some rude things and they left. And I just didn’t know what to do because Mariette was dead and there were more dead bodies up and down the corridor. So I started running and I thought maybe I’d find a way out and that’s when I saw the man about to kill you. Is he dead? He is dead, right?”

Flynn rubbed her back. “Yes, he’s dead. He’s not a problem anymore. You’re doing just fine, _cara mia_ , and I’m so sorry about Mariette. I’m going to get you out of here and to somewhere safe.”

“O-ok.”

Flynn took her hand and held it tight. Getting out with a princess in tow was going to be much more difficult than getting in. He took thirty seconds to reload the pistol, tucked it into his waistband, and said “Follow me.” Behind him, the room he’d come from was embroiled in a vicious battle between the Swiss and National Guards. They had to keep going and find another way out.

They ran, slower this time to account for Estelle’s shorter legs. Flynn was careful to avoid tripping on any more corpses, but it was impossible to not step in blood, which ran through the palace in streams. At the very least, he was heartened by one detail of Estelle’s story. The attackers were aiming to not kill the women, which meant some of the residents of the palace would make it out alive, at least. And if he was killed… at least they wouldn’t butcher Estelle, too. Though Flynn was growing tired, he didn’t dare slow down. A slow target was an easy target, and he had no idea where all the shooters were and when the shots that narrowly missed him were stray bullets versus failures to hit him.

“Do you know another way out of the palace?” Flynn asked as they skidded around a corner.

“There’s a hidden passage under the garden terrace, but-” she coughed on musket smoke, “-I don’t know if we can make it there.”

“We might as well try.” It might be their only chance. “Lead the way.”

“Keep going down this hall.” She was gasping for breath, obviously unused to so much running and excitement. Flynn didn’t dare lose his grip on her hand as they neared the end of the hall. A pale arm lay flopped on the ground in the doorway of an open room, but Flynn didn’t do more than glance to see who the body belonged to. Ten paces from the next corner, a man sprinted around it and halted when he saw them. For a second, Flynn hoped he was a terrified palace resident trying to escape like them, and then he raised his musket. Flynn dove for the open door. He heard a bang and his mind started a count to twenty seconds before the man reloaded and aimed again. He tackled Estelle to the ground and then sprang up as quickly as he could ( _six… seven… eight…_ ) to slam the door shut. In his haste, he forgot the dead body on the ground and the door thumped on the outstretched arm ( _twelve… thirteen… fourteen…_ ). Estelle saw his problem from her position on the floor, grabbed the corpse’s waist, and pulled ( _sixteen… seventeen…_ ). Flynn kicked the arm the last few inches out of the way ( _nineteen…)_

The door slammed shut and Flynn pressed his back against it. Estelle started to get up, but he hadn’t even finished telling her to stay down when a musket ball smashed through the wood a foot from Flynn’s waist. Twenty more seconds. The ball hit a wooden bedpost, which was one of the dominant features of what he only now realized was a bedroom. The ball left a hole in the door a few inches wide and surrounded by splinters. Through it, Flynn heard the man hastily reloading.

They still had fifteen seconds. Flynn yanked the pistol from his waist, shoved the barrel through the hole, and released a ball of his own. He heard a scream and a thud, and pulled the pistol back with a grim look to Estelle, and then reloaded the pistol.

“Are you hurt?”

“I - no. I - I’m fine.” There was fresh blood on her skirt from falling onto the dead man on the floor.

Flynn was about to open the door, but he heard running footsteps and shouting voices. With a _boom-boom-boom-boom_ , a group unleashed a volley of musket fire at someone at the other end of the corridor. More shots fired back and stomping feet arrived to join the others. “Just our luck. There’s a skirmish just outside.” Opening the door would be suicide.

Estelle rose to her shaky feet. “They won’t come in here, right?”

“I hope not.” The door had no lock. He ran across the room, leaving bloody footprints in the Persian rug below the bed. There was a window overlooking the garden, which was currently empty. “If we could go out this window and get to the garden, we could escape to the Quai du Louvre. It’s a long drop to the ground, though.”

Estelle looked around the room. “Oh! I have an idea!” She ripped a blanket from the bed and then pulled off the sheet. “I read about this in a book. Knot the sheets into a rope and use that to escape!”

Flynn had less faith in the idea than Estelle did based on her determined face, but he didn’t have any other ideas. The shooting outside the door was getting worse and he didn’t know if the victors would open all the doors along the hall to look for more victims. “It’s the best idea we have.”

They worked quickly. There were two sheets on the bed, both made of finely woven cotton. They tied the two together with the tightest knot Flynn could manage, and then tied one end to the curtain rod bolted to the wall. Flynn tugged it experimentally, then lifted his feet and hung a few inches off the floor. The sheets strained, but held his weight.

“Ok. I think this will hold. I’ll go first. As soon as I get a few feet down, come after.”

“Um….” Estelle leaned through the window and looked down at the ground. “Flynn, I - I don’t actually think I can do this….”

“Are you afraid of heights?”

She shook her head. “No, but… but I’ve never done anything like this. I don’t think I have the arm strength to hold myself up like you can….”

Flynn wanted to encourage her, but she was right. Her life as a princess had hardly demanded physical exertion, and there was a good chance that if she tried to shimmy down a rope, she’d lose her grip and crash to the ground. This was not a situation for gambles. “I’ll carry you.”

“You can? All the way down? Are you sure?”

“Afraid I’ll drop you?”

“No! I trust you!” She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “If you’re sure.”

There was no time to reconsider. Down the hall, a door slammed open and Flynn’s heart skipped a beat. Whoever had won, they were checking rooms. Flynn checked once more to confirm the coast was clear, and then swung his leg through the window. As soon as he dropped, Estelle’s weight nearly choked him. She let out a frightened gasp as they dangled above the ground. Flynn’s knees and feet squeezed the sheet to help support their weight as his arms trembled from the effort. Slowly, he eased down. Flynn half-heartedly mused that if only Estelle was wearing a few more layers of dress, it might serve as a parachute.

Another door slammed open, closer this time. Seconds later, a head poked through the window and shouted at them. Flynn didn’t even notice what, because it was accompanied by a musket. “Estelle! My pistol!”

“I got it!” She shifted her arms so only one of them was locked around his neck, choking him. Her legs clutched his waist while her free hand pulled out the pistol. “How do I fire it?!”

“Just pull the trigger!” The musket was pointed right at his face, and Flynn had to close his eyes when he heard the bang. No piece of metal broke through his forehead, so he let himself open them again to see the man slumped the the window, arms hanging limp.

“I - I shot him!”

“Good shot!”

“I can’t believe I shot somebody….”

Flynn couldn’t say anything else until he reached the end of their sheet rope and dropped four feet to the ground. Estelle fell from his back while Flynn hit his knees to the ground. His arms felt like rubber after that exertion and he wheezed for breath now that he wasn’t being strangled.

“Are you ok?” She rested a hand on his shoulder blades.

“F-fine.” He coughed once, stood, and turned to her. “You saved both our lives with that shot. The man was trying to kill us. You have no reason to feel guilt.”

“I… I know….”

He held her hand tightly. “But now, _cara mia_ , we need to keep moving.”

They were in the corner of the garden, where the palace met the garden wall. Just over this wall was the Quai du Louvre and the river. The garden was far from empty, but the residents were far too busy chasing each other through the hedges and hacking anyone wearing the wrong uniform to pieces to pay any attention to a shadowy corner.

“We need to cross the river,” Flynn said. “I’m taking you back to Yuri’s house. I’ve mentioned my friend Yuri, right?”

She nodded once. “Yes. Ok.”

They made a run for the gate and slipped out of the garden without being spotted. They were on the street now, the sounds of battle left behind in the building. A seagull sat on the wall above the river, unperturbed by the violence not too far away. Flynn slowed down because the goal now was to blend in and not look like they were running. Ahead of them, a body was tossed out the window and landed on the street with a thud. Running parallel to the river was a long gallery that connected the Tuileries to the Louvre, and now a second finely-dressed body fell unceremoniously to the ground. Flynn could imagine courtiers running down the gallery, trying to escape the palace that way, only to be shot or stabbed so close to freedom. Estelle’s hand tightened around Flynn’s with every thud of a corpse.

They had just drawn level with the Pont Royal when a first floor window smashed open and three men clambered out. All three of them were weighed down with arm-fulls of golden candlesticks, strings of pearls, silver cutlery, and anything else shiny. Flynn was not at all surprised to recognize the leader of the thieves, but unfortunately, the leader recognized him as well.

“You!” Cumore snarled at him.

“Having fun looting?” Flynn shot back, angling his body between Cumore and Estelle. “I wondered if you would be having more fun looting or slaughtering.”

“A foreigner has no business speaking to his betters like that and -” his eyes landed on Estelle in all her finery. “Aren’t you… the princess!” His eyes met Flynn’s with triumph. “I knew we couldn’t trust an Italian, you traitor!”

Flynn didn’t waste words pointing out that looting the palace for gold was not at all in line with revolutionary ideals. He took off running again, dragging Estelle across the bridge and praying Cumore and his goons were slower. Cumore must have realized that the bounty for turning in the princess was greater than the gold he was stealing, because he’d dropped all of that to chase after them. The streets were deserted, sine everyone in Paris was either at the Tuileries or locked inside their homes, which meant there was no one to get in their way of fleeing but also no crowd to lose themselves in. Cumore and the two militiamen with him were about twenty paces behind as they fled down Rue du Bac, due south from the river. With Estelle’s heavy layers of dress and stiff, heeled shoes, she was having difficulty keeping up with Flynn’s pace. Flynn didn’t dare let go of her hand.

“Where…” Estelle panted, “are we… going?”

“A secret passage of a sort.”

It was eerie to see Paris so deserted in the bright, mid-afternoon sun. The only other living things on the streets were stray cats and the occasional bird. Flynn leapt over horse droppings on the road and veered off the major street onto a smaller one. He didn’t let them slow down as long as he heard Cumore’s running footsteps behind them.

They took a few more turns in an effort to throw their pursuers off. They had finally reached the road Flynn was aiming for, and Cumore was still at least a block away. Good, they wouldn’t be seen. “Over here!” Flynn brought her to a low vent in the side of a stone wall. It was an arch about a foot high at it’s peak. They were on a narrow street between two large buildings of pale stone, and a pair of moulding barrels were pushed against the wall. Flynn dragged one of these toward the opening as Estelle hovered by it uncertainly.

“You go first.” Flynn looked over his shoulder but Cumore still hadn’t caught up. “There’s a ladder. Keep going down until you reach the bottom. It’s about ninety feet down. Be careful; it’s very dark.”

Estelle eyes the dark opening with trepidation. “Um… what’s down there? A sewer?”

“Not quite. It’s the old quarry, where these stones,” he gestured at the buildings around them, “likely came from. Hurry!”

“Right!” Estelle struggled to fit her skirts through the opening and had to force and bend the puffed-up petticoats to fit. She managed, though, and quickly began descending the ladder.

As soon as she was out of sight, Flynn pulled the barrel closer, dropped to his knees, and backed through the narrow hole. The edges scraped his hips and for a terrifying second, he couldn’t find the first rung of the ladder. As he eased himself down, he pulled the barrel toward the entrance until it blocked the opening entirely and only thin cracks of light showed through. Now Flynn clung to the rusty iron ladder, in darkness so thick he couldn’t see the walls a foot from his face.

He heard running footsteps and hissed, “Shhh! He’s coming.”

The sounds of Estelle’s descent fell silent and Flynn pressed himself into the ladder, not daring to move. The shadows of Cumore and his accomplices legs flashed past the barrel, but they paid it no heed as they ran past.

Cumore called, “You take the left branch. We’ll go right. They can’t have gone far,” and then the steps disappeared.

Flynn pressed his forehead to a cold rung and unclenched his muscles. “Ok. You can keep going.”

They climbed into darkness. The summer heat quickly faded in the damp tunnel and Flynn’s fingers were going numb on the metal ladder. They didn’t speak as they descended, except once when Flynn put his foot down on something soft and Estelle said, “Ouch!” He pulled his foot away with a quick apology.

Flynn felt the space increase around him rather than see it. He could tell that the walls were no longer closing in on him based on the reverberations of the ladder’s rattling. A few seconds later, he heard Estelle scuffle off the ladder. His feet hit rock shortly after and he gladly stepped away and clasped his hands together to warm them.

“Flynn? Where are we? I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”

“Hold on. Don’t move for a second.” Flynn knelt and patted the ground, which had been levelled but was still rough stone. They landed on a smooth metal box, then a pile of fabric, and finally a wax candle in its tin holder. Yuri and Judith had left him the supplies he’d requested. “I’m going to light a candle. Stay still until you can see.” Flynn picked up the tinderbox and fumbled blindly to find the lid. He’d never done this without being able to see, but had used similar boxes to light candles so often throughout his life that he’d always thought he could do it blindfolded. Now was the time to put that to the test. He slid the box open and found the hook-shaped steel, which he positioned over his left fingers. With his other hand, he clasped the sharp-edged piece of flint and positioned his hands over the box on the ground.

“Ack!”

“What happened?”

Flynn grumbled, “Nothing. I just tried to strike a spark on my fingers.” Knuckles stinging, Flynn tried again. Thankfully, he hit the steel this time and a few sparks flew into the dry tinder sitting in the box. Flynn quickly bent over and blew until he’d nursed his spark into a tiny flame. Before it could go out, he stuck the wick of the candle into it and triumphantly stood up with light. “All the better to see you with, _cara mia_.”

Estelle took his hand and examined the torn skin on the backs of his fingers. Pricks of blood had appeared on his middle finger. She pulled his hand forward and kissed his fingers. “All better?”

His heart did a little back flip and his only response was a flustered, “Ehm….”

She released his hand. “Where did the candle come from?”

“Yuri left it for me.” Flynn’s other hands ran over his fingers where her lips had touched. His fingers buzzed from the touch of her lips and he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he went with, “Let’s keep moving.”

They took off down the tunnel. The single candle didn’t do much to penetrate the darkness, so they walked slowly to watch their footing. At first their path was down a narrow, blocky tunnel of chiselled stone, but after ten minutes they passed under a stone slab arch and into a wider tunnel where they couldn’t see the ceiling with the tiny flickering light. Flynn concentrated on the ground and manoeuvring over the occasional chunks of rock that blocked the path, or leading them around sharp-angled corners.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Estelle’s voice was soft, but in the silent and claustrophobic tunnels, it seemed huge.

“Yes. I’ve come exploring down here in the past, with Yuri and his friends.”

Estelle gazed in wonder at the rows of arched pillars running through the now-wide room they were crossing through. “I had no idea all of this was under Paris.”

“The tunnels run for miles. Maybe over a hundred miles, even. I’ve only explored a small section of them.” His light gleamed on a placid puddle that covered the entirety of the tunnel they needed to cross. It wasn’t too deep, though, so they carefully tip-toed through the water. The echoes of their watery steps spread through the hollow caverns.

“It’s really creepy down here.”

Flynn bit his tongue and wondered if he should warn her about what the last leg of their journey would contain.

“What if your candle goes out? And we’re trapped down here in the dark and can’t find our way out?!”

“Relax.” He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “I know where I’m going. Besides, I still have the tinderbox. If the candle goes out, I’ll just light it again.”

“If you say so….” After they cleared the flooded tunnel, they walked up some stone steps and had to duck when the ceiling lowered once more. “Um… Flynn…. Why are you taking me to your friend’s house? I mean, why can’t I go to the National Assembly with my family?”

Flynn frowned. Estelle had already had a hellish day without this news, but she deserved to be kept in the loop. “Because I think the monarchy is on the verge of collapsing. I think there’s a strong possibility that after today, your uncle won’t be a king anymore. There was discussion about what to do with an ex-royal family, and from what I was told, it looks like they’re going to be imprisoned. I didn’t want you to get sent to prison with the rest of them.”

Estelle took a shuddering breath. “You know… I’m not even surprised at this point.” The tunnel floor was rough and bumpy here, sloping inward to a central trickle of dark water a few inches wide. The walls were made of foot-long blocks of limestone and they passed under an arch built into the ceiling every ten paces. “I hope they’re ok. Maybe… it will only be a little while until they’re released.” She didn’t sound like she believed it.

They’d walked for about half an hour now, and Flynn stopped at the end of the arched tunnel. “Estelle, before we go any further, I need to warn you about what’s ahead.”

When she turned her eyes to him, she’d never looked so weary. “What is it now?”

“Are you aware of the cemetery crisis in Paris?”

She nodded slowly. “A little. They say the cemeteries are all full, and a little while ago a basement wall next to a cemetery collapsed and corpses flooded someone’s house.”

“That’s right. They’ve been taking bodies out of the old cemeteries and interning them into a new ossuary to solve the issue. And that new ossuary is, um, here.”

“Here?”

“Just ahead, we’ll enter the ossuary section of the tunnels. I just wanted to warn you because it can be a little, uh, unnerving.”

Estelle’s face said that walking into an open grave with only a candle for light, a hundred feet below the city, seemed like a typical escalation of events for how her life had been going lately. “I trust you, Flynn. Lead on.”

After just one more segment of tunnel, they passed under an arch and into a wider passage. At least, the walls were farther apart. They had less area to actually walk because on either side of the path sat piles of bones as tall as Flynn. Estelle gasped when she entered and scooted closer to Flynn.

He tried to move quickly so they could leave the ossuary behind. Every step illuminated fresh horrors. Hundreds of empty eye sockets watched them from all sides. Heaps of ribs were topped by orphaned pelvises and the spaces between femurs were filled with thousands of tiny finger bones. The candlelight danced across grinning teeth and even the pillar supporting the centre of the room where the passage widened was encircled with skulls. Every shifting shadow made Flynn question his disbelief in the supernatural. If ever a place was haunted, this tunnel would be.

“Ah!”

Flynn turned around at her gasp just in time to see her fall to the ground. Estelle reached under her dress to see what she’d tripped on and pulled out a long, thin bone that might have come from an arm. She stared at it, hands trembling and face stricken, and then tossed it away with a cry. She crumpled downward, face buried in her hands, shoulders shuddering.

“Estelle!” Flynn dropped to his knees and set the candle beside them. “What’s wrong?”

“W-what _isn’t_ wrong?” she sobbed through her hands. “I’m sorry. I was trying to hold it to-together for you but… all these bones, it’s just…. Why do so many people have to die?”

Flynn wrapped his arms around her and offered what comfort he could. Given the mountain of worries the poor girl had to deal with, he wasn’t sure what good that would do.

“The didn’t have to kill Mariette, but they did and her blood got all over my dress. And they didn’t have to kill any of the other servants, either. Why did they kill so many people? They just - they just slaughtered everyone in the palace they could find… they tossed the bodies out the windows like rubbish.” Her hands clutched the front of his shirt and she buried her face in his neck, tears soaking into his collar. “I can’t stop thinking about all the blood that streaked the floors. And now these people are putting my aunt and uncle in prison and I think it’s foolish to hope they won’t do anything bad to them. You’ve seen how eager they are to put heads on pikes. Louis and Antoinette were like my second parents and I - I don’t think I’m ever going to see them again.”

Flynn wanted to reassure her, but he shared her suspicions.

 

“I’m scared, Flynn. What do I do now?”

“You go to Yuri’s house on Rue du Ciel. You’ll be safe there. And actually, I think I’ll have to go into hiding there as well. Cumore knows me, and it won’t be long before the entire National Guard thinks me a traitor.” Flynn rubbed her back. “We’re going to live at Yuri’s house. I know your life has fallen apart, but don’t be afraid of being cast adrift. You’re not alone, and you never will have to be. Maybe France is spiralling out of control, but we’ll get through it together.”

Estelle sniffled. She kept herself pressed into Flynn for a few more long seconds before finally lifted her face and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “T-together?”

“Absolutely.”

She closed her eyes as she calmed down her breathing. “Together,” she repeated softly. Then she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Flynn… I think… I’m not a princess anymore.”

“You still are, for a few more hours at least. I doubt the motion to abolish the monarchy has gone through yet.”

“Well, maybe technically, but for all practical purposes, I’m not. I’m just an ordinary girl now.” Her hand slid up to his shoulder. “So I think… I think that means you’re allowed to kiss me now.”

So he did. In the damp and barely lit tunnel, surrounded by bones, with the country tearing itself apart above them, Flynn pulled her close and, for the first and last time in his life, kissed a princess. He didn’t know what the future would hold for them. No one could predict where France would go next and it was only hope that Yuri’s house truly would keep them safe from the storm of the revolution. He didn’t know if Cumore would come after him, if the king and queen would ever be released from prison, if France would repel the Austrian and Prussian invaders to safeguard their sovereignty, or how long two enemies of the state could stay safe in a city turned upside down. The only certainty was Estelle, secure in his arms and soft on his lips, and the knowledge that whatever stood against them in the coming days, neither of them would have to face it alone.

And he knew that they wouldn’t be alone, and that they would stay together no matter what the revolution threw against them next, because….

He was certain that no matter what, he would protect Estelle, because….

After all, he’d charged into the mayhem at the Tuileries just for her, because he -

Because -

He wanted to hold her here, tasting the salt of the her tears on her cool cheeks, the trembling of her fingers wrapped around the back of his neck, until the candle burned low and they had no choice but to leave, because he-

Because -


	8. Across the Sea

**17 March, 1794**

“Because I love her!” Flynn threw his head into his hands and his shoulders heaved for breath. His ribs stabbed with pain, but that didn’t matter because truth was exploding through his head and the reality of everything he’d denied for months was hitting him with the force of a cannon. “I love her,” he said again, softer this time. “I’ve always loved her, I just… I couldn’t face it….”

At the end of the bed, Yuri watched him solemnly. Flynn had, of course, told Yuri about the day of the assault on the Tuileries before, but never in so much detail. He’d merely told him about the basic chain of events, and left out entirely his conversation with Estelle in the ossuary. He hadn’t even thought about that conversation in months, which he now realized was odd because in the year between it and his arrest, it was a moment he thought about every other day. It had been such a confusing mix of emotions. There had been the fear of being caught, of losing Estelle to the revolution, of not knowing where life was heading next, but it had mixed with a guilt-tinged joy that the impossible had happened and Estelle was no longer out of his reach. Estelle had been thrust down from the pinnacle of society and right into his arms, which was a silver lining to which both of them had clung.

He’d thought he could tell the story without passion. He’d thought that his memories of love for Estelle were confidently filed away as naivety, and that he could explain how he’d felt that day without destroying his conclusion that it had been foolish to think his love for her was true, and that she was just another heartless aristocrat who used commoners like tools. Only, for the first time in months, he’d forced himself to revisit the memory of her throwing a vase at a swordsman to save his life. The fact that she’d left the safety of the Hôtel de Ville to try to help her maid and her collapse of despair sparked by the mass murder of so many palace residents threatened her role in his imagination as an uncaring, selfish monster.

_“Maybe France is spiralling out of control, but we’ll get through it together.”_

And he’d meant that, he’d truly meant it. He’d never been more confident in what he wanted than he had been kneeling in the candlelight between mountains of bones, and what he wanted was Estelle in whatever fashion they could manage.

“But this means… that means it _was_ my fault. I did all of this to myself.” He looked down at his body lying on the bed and tried to stop the well of grief opening up when he considered how he’d pelted into the Tuileries, leaping over bodies and running up stairs. He doubted that kind of athleticism would ever be in his future again.

“It’s not your goddamn fault.” Yuri shook his head, irritated. “Robespierre is the one orchestrating this paranoid police state we’re stuck in, and Cumore is the one who brought you in and did all that shit to you. You have no one to blame but them. You should be _proud_ that you resisted for so long.”

“I… I guess so….” It was so much easier to put the responsibility in the hands of someone else. He didn’t want to even question whether he’d done the smart thing by putting love and honour before self-preservation. “I have to apologize to her. I haven’t been behaving rationally at all. I’ve hurt her so deeply.” A montage of everything he’d said to Estelle in the past month played before his eyes, and he groaned. “ _Mon Dieu_ , Yuri…. What have I done? I promised I would protect her, and then I went to class and abandoned her. Then I promised that whatever happened next, we would get through it together, and I turned my back on her. I don’t even deserve her.”

“Hey.” Yuri rested a hand on Flynn’s shin. “Third time’s the charm, right?” In the distance, a clock bell began to strike the hour. “ _Merde_. Estelle’s leaving any second now.” Yuri hopped to his feet. “I’ll go get her.”

Yuri started for the door, but Flynn couldn’t wait. He’d had enough of lying in bed and cutting himself off from Estelle. For once, he needed to live up to his promise and go to her when he was needed. His feet hit the ground and he pushed on the mattress to help himself get up. Yuri turned around when he heard the hiss of pain and Flynn’s knees shook with the exertion. His ankles throbbed and the first step sent fire through his damaged hips. Every joint and muscle complained about being used and after two steps, his balance gave out. If Yuri hadn’t dashed back to catch him, he would have crashed to the ground.

“Whoa, slow down. I don’t think you’re ready to walk downstairs yet. You haven’t even made it across the room.”

“I have to go to her.”

“Fine, you stubborn idiot, but let me carry you.”

Even being carried was hard work. Yuri lifted him onto his back and Flynn wrapped his arms around Yuri’s neck. Yuri’s arms supported his legs, but Flynn held them stiffly to keep them from swinging free and hurting his knees any more than he had to. He also tried not to be discouraged at how easily Yuri carried him, and assured himself that he’d gain muscle and fat again in time.

Yuri took him onto the landing. This was the first time Flynn had seen the house outside his bedroom or what could be seen through the open door since last November. Not much had changed, but then he didn’t look too closely because his eyes were fixed on the figures embracing in front of the door.

“Estelle!”

She pulled away from Rita and looked up with surprise. “Flynn?”

“Hurry, Yuri.”

“What am I, a horse?”

Estelle, Rita, Judith, Karol, and a young man who must be Ioder congregated in front of the door. Estelle had a rucksack at her feet to hold her few belongings. Yuri took the stairs as quickly as he could with Flynn throwing off his balance, and when they reached the bottom he crouched so Flynn could slide off his back. Yuri wrapped an arm around Flynn’s back and under his armpit to him stay up, but Flynn pulled away from him to hurry toward Estelle.

“I’m sorry.” He threw his arms around her and leaned forward, resting part of his weight on his shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ah - um - Flynn? Are you - I mean - what?”

He squeezed her as tightly as his weakened arms could muster. “I’ve been stupid, and blind, and in denial, and so many other foolish things. I love you, _cara mia_. I always have and I always will. I can’t beg your forgiveness enough.”

Estelle’s hands reached up to land on his arms. For a few seconds she was too flustered to do anything but stammer his name, but finally she managed to say, “Of course I forgive you!”

“I’m afraid I’m going to bring you down with me.”

“Oh, Flynn, don’t say that. If anything, I’ll pull you up with _me_.”

His legs shook. “No… I mean my knees are about to give out and I’m gonna crash to the floor any second now.”

Judith stepped in to catch him before he hit the ground. His arms slid away from Estelle and hung limp at his sides as he slumped in Judith’s grip. His elbows throbbed and shoulders ached, but it had been worth it. Yuri dragged a chair from the kitchen and Judith lowered him into the seat. Flynn hated sitting when everyone around him was on their feet, but just sitting upright on a solid chair was causing him discomfort. _Baby steps_ , he thought.

Ioder was watching the situation with moderate confusion. “Is this Flynn Scifo?” he asked Estelle. “The man you told me about?”

“Oh! Yes!” Estelle hastily introduced them.

Ioder stuck out a hand for a shake, but Flynn held up his heavily bandaged and stiff hand. “With all due respect, I would rather not.”

Ioder closed his fist and brought it to his chest. “I understand completely.”

“So….” Estelle fiddled with her hands as she looked at Flynn. “Are you saying you want me to stay, then?”

Flynn leaned against the back of the chair, having lost the strength to hold himself up. “I want you to go or stay wherever you wish. I just ask that I can do it with you.”

“Of course you can!” Estelle clasped her hands over her heart and looked at Ioder. “Um, he can, right?”

Ioder nodded. “One extra passenger should be fine. Although… is he fit to travel?”

Everyone looked to Flynn to hear his personal assessment. Flynn looked down at his feet and then looked up at everyone who had the ability to stand. “I… can’t travel under my own strength, I’m afraid. If any amount of walking is required, I can’t do it.” He looked away, frustrated with himself.  Of course walking would be required on a journey to England.  

“We can get a wheelchair,” Judith said. “I’m sure we can get our hands on one.”

Rita nodded. “And you’re going to be in a carriage or a ship for most of the way, anyway. You just need someone to help you get between those.”

Ioder pulled a pocketwatch out of his coat. “We have some time. As long as we leave within the hour, we should be fine.”

“Ok!” Estelle planted her hands on Flynn’s shoulders. “You sit tight, Flynn. We’ll get your stuff packed and everything ready.”

They scattered, leaving Flynn sitting in a chair by the stairs and wondering why life kept moving so fast. Eventually, Yuri returned to pull him out of the way and against the wall. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded.

“So. You’re really leaving?”

“I suppose I am.” It had all happened so fast. He still had to remind himself he was on Rue du Ciel every morning when he woke up in a cold sweat, and now he was moving to England. “I don’t even speak English.”

“Looks like it’s time for a crash course. Sucks to be you; it’s an awful language. Always sounds like they’re trying to speak with a hot potato in their mouths. You probably won’t have too bad a time, though. I heard it’s easier to learn a new language if you already know more than one.”

“Huh.” He was a bit too overwhelmed to put too much thought into his future linguistic needs.

When he didn’t say anything else, Yuri looked down at him. “And… it’s not for forever, right? I mean, you’re gonna come back?”

“I honestly don’t know. I would like to. I think of Paris as my home now, and I’m not keen on living in England forever. The question is whether it will ever be safe for me to do so - and safe for Estelle, too, of course. I won’t leave without her.”

“It’s got to. Everyone hates Robespierre. He won’t stay in power forever. At the very least, someone’s gonna bump him off one of these days.”

“I just want all this violence to end. No more executions, no more arrests, no more tribunals and interrogations.”

“That’s the dream.” Yuri lightly squeezed Flynn’s shoulder. “Just make sure you write to us. Let us know how you’re getting by up there. We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come home.”

“I will.” He’d likely dictate letters to Estelle, actually, because he wasn’t sure if his fingers would ever be nimble enough to hold a pen again. “And, Yuri, I really can’t thank you enough. For a while I resented you for preventing me from dying in peace, but I think I’m glad I’m still alive.”

“Oh, you think so, do you? That’s a step in the right direction I guess.”

“And I definitely resented you for hounding me about Estelle all the time, but I’m glad you did. It’s like there was muck in my brain for the past couple of months, and I’ve finally cleared it out. This is the most like myself I’ve felt in ages.”

“Good to hear it.”

Flynn smiled a little. “I’m going to miss you, Yuri.”

“Don’t get all mushy on me. But… I might miss you, too. Just a bit.”

Soon enough, it was time to leave. Flynn had few enough belongings here that they could squeeze them into the same bag Estelle was using. Judith had acquired a rickety old wheelchair from a hospital, and when asked how she’d talked them into selling it, she’d said something about the wheels of business transactions being greased by womanly wiles. Flynn had noticed that she’d changed into a dress that was significantly too small in the chest area before going out, and he looked to Yuri to see if it at all bothered him to hear that his wife had apparently been flirting with another man. Unsurprisingly, Yuri laughed and congratulated her. Flynn wasn’t sure he would ever understand their relationship.

Then they were leaving. It was a whirlwind of hugs and goodbyes and Flynn hadn’t been in a room with this many people talking since November. It was giving him a headache and he yearned for the peace and quiet of his bedroom. When all the goodbyes were said, Flynn held the bag on his lap and Estelle pushed the chair out of the house. Outside, under the bright sun and struck by the cold air, his desire to retreat to bed doubled. He was so exposed out here and he half expected Cumore to burst out from around a corner and drag him away.

They couldn’t reach the carriage fast enough. The driver, who had been smoking a pipe and lounging in the front seat, hopped down to help them in. Estelle stepped up first, and then Ioder and the driver took Flynn by the arms and let him lean on them while he struggled up the couple of steps. Estelle pulled him onto one padded velvet bench and let him stretch out on it while she and Ioder sat across from him. He could lie here all the way to the ship, he told his aching body.

Except, he had to sit up one last time. He leaned on the wall of the carriage so he could look out the window at the gaggle of friends waving from their front step. Estelle leaned out the window and waved back, shouting, “Goodbye! Thank you for everything! We’ll be back as soon as we can! _Au revoir_!”

“ _Bon voyage!_ ” Yuri shouted.

Flynn forced his arm up enough to wave. He fixed the image in his mind, determined not to forget it until, at the very least, he was able to return to Paris. Karol jumping up and down as he waved farewell, Rita leaning against the doorway with a tiny smile., Judith waving her arm and not giving a damn what that did to her chest in the tiny dress, and Yuri with his arms folded and a cocky smile on his face, refusing to be sad because he was confident they were reunite soon enough. Then the carriage turned a corner, and Rue du Ciel was gone.

* * *

 

**19 March, 1794**

Someone shook her arm. “Estelle.”

“Hm…?” She cracked her eyes open. There was a crick in her neck from sleeping slumped against the wall of the carriage. Flynn’s head rested on her lap and once again he tugged her elbow.

“Wake up, Estelle. We’ve reached Calais. Do you smell the ocean?”

She gasped and straightened up. The gasp brought her a mouthful of salty air and she became aware of the rhythmic crash of waves in the distance. “I do! Oh, Flynn, I never even knew salt smelled like this.” She peered out the window at a field of blue-green that stretched into the distance until it hit a wall of white stone. The water rippled in the light and as it got closer to the shore, pieces of it broke off in a cloud of white to race onto the beach. “ _Merveilleux_! Isn’t it beautiful?”

“I haven’t seen it yet, actually.” He was stretched out on the bench with his head in her lap, as he’d been when both of them began napping in the carriage this morning.

“Where’s Ioder?” Estelle asked.

“He’s gone to speak with the captain of the ship. He told us to wait here.”

Estelle stared out the window in rapture. The carriage was parked on the road next to the docks. Just feet away, dark green water thrashed against the stone embankment. “I’m getting out. Do you want to come?”

“I suppose we have to eventually.”

Getting out of the carriage was a slow process that involved first getting the wheelchair on the ground and then helping Flynn ease himself down the steps and into it. She could tell by his grimace that the exertion caused him pain, but he didn’t say a peep. When he was situated, she pushed him around the carriage to the edge of the road so she was now mere feet away from the ocean. “It’s breathtaking.” She pressed her hands on one of the wooden posts that lined the road, a thick rope strung between them.

“Careful. Don’t lean too far, or you’ll fall in.”

“I won’t!” She leaned back. “What is that white wall in the distance? I thought the ocean meant it stretched forever.”

“That’s England, I think. The Cliffs of Dover. I’ve never been to the Channel before, though, so I could be wrong.”

“Wow… it’s closer than I thought.” It made her feel better about going away. Paris might not be visible from where they were going in the countryside, but at least France wouldn't be that far away. “I’m so happy I finally get to see it. I’m even more happy that I get to see it with you.” Her hand landed on his shoulder.

“I never thought I’d see the ocean again. I never thought I’d see anything beyond the Conciergerie.”

“But you did.”

His hand drifted up to his own shoulder to cover hers. “Yes. I did. And you know, I think part of the reason I let myself begin to hate you while I was in there was that if I wanted nothing to do with you, it was easier to accept that I wouldn’t ever see you again.”

“I guess that goes to show that you can’t always be right.” And for her own part, she was thrilled to be proven incorrect, too. She’d been so sure that pining after Flynn was a lost cause and that she’d be better served letting him go and moving on. The day they’d left had been such a flurry of activity that she hadn’t had time to ask Yuri exactly what he’d done, other than Yuri mentioning that he’d demanded Flynn tell a story this time rather than vice-versa. She would never be able to thank him enough for bringing Flynn back to her. She leaned over to kiss the top of his head. “I’m just glad it’s over now.”

Flynn’s hand slipped to his lap. “I’m not sure it will ever be over.”

Estelle lowered herself to the wooden post and sat so she was at eye-level with him. She saw his face, which had aged so much in just a few years since that fateful night at Versailles.  There was dried blood on his lower lip again; he couldn’t seem to break the habit of biting it. She had woken up this morning with a sore lip, too, because cuddling close to Flynn at night meant putting herself in arm’s reach when he thrashed in his nightmares. “I know what you mean. But it’s like you said all those months ago in the ossuary; whatever comes next, we’ll get through it together. You helped me more than I can say when my life fell apart, so it’s the least I can do to return the favour now.” She wanted to think, _Especially because it’s my fault your life was ruined_ , but she knew what Yuri would say. If Flynn wasn’t allowed to blame himself, then she wasn’t either.

“Maybe this will end up being a good thing.” Flynn gazed over her shoulder at the English cliffs in the distance. “I’ll be forced to learn English when I get over there. Then, I’ll be able to read John Locke’s first treatise.”

“Heh. That’s a bright side, all right.” She placed her hands on his knees, gently. “But don’t worry. My English isn’t perfect, but it should be enough. I’ll translate for you, and I’ll track down books for you in French or Italian so you have something to do, and I’ll do anything you need me to do to help you feel better.”

One of Flynn’s stiff hands brushed the side of her face and she leaned forward. “The only thing I need from you to feel better is for you to be there, _cara mia_.”

Once upon a time, Estelle had thought that Flynn’s eyes could be an acceptable substitute for the ocean. Now that she was sitting by the real thing, she knew the comparison had been silly because nothing could compare to the vastness of the sea. And yet, she couldn’t tear herself away from his kiss even with the ocean crashing for attention behind her. Estelle leaned into the kiss, ignoring the hint of copper on his lip. It didn’t matter if he was harried, scarred, and crippled. As much as she loved the fairytale idea of a knight in shining armour, she appreciated even more her knight in scuffed and dented armour. Banged-up armour meant that he had fought for something.

She pulled away and ran fingers through his hair. As usual, it was sticking up in many directions and the salty breeze only further fluttered it. “Is this what it was like where you grew up?”

“Hm… in a way. It smells the same, but it’s colder and the sea isn’t as blue. I do love the smell of the ocean, though.” He took as deep a breath as his ribs would allow. “I haven’t smelled it since we left for Paris when I was ten. It makes me think of warm summer nights when I was young, when my mother sang to me to put me to sleep.”

The tune drifted into Estelle’s mind from the time Flynn had sung it for her many years ago. She was probably remembering it wrong, though, and struggled to feel positively toward it given the way Flynn had been reciting the lyrics whenever he was in pain. “You know… you never told me what the song means. I know it’s a lullaby, but… what do the lyrics actually say?”

“Oh? Ah… let me think. I’m sure it won’t sound nearly as poetic if I try to make it fit into French, so please excuse this rough translation. It goes, ‘Under the bridge, the moon shines. Not a star in the sky is missing. Sleep.’”

Flynn watched the waves as he spoke, while Estelle watched him. She wondered if he was imagining a different sea as he spoke.

“’In the chestnut trees, the wind is moaning. Our light will soon be out. Sleep. For many months, we’ve been alone. War takes fathers away from children.’ Um, rather, ‘from _their_ children’. Sorry.”

His brow creased and he hesitated before giving her the next verse. Estelle wondered if Flynn had ever explained this song to anyone else before, and then worried that she shouldn’t have asked about it. It was the song he’d shared with his mother; the song that had gotten him through his imprisonment and torture. But he hadn’t protested, so he must be all right with sharing it with her.

“And the final verse goes, ‘My heart aches. I can’t take any more. Let me cry tonight, but you sleep.’ Or… something like that. That last bit is a little messy.”

“Oh… that seems like such a sad song.”

“Yes, it seems so. I think when I was young, I paid attention to the melody and the tone of my mother’s voice more than the words.”

Estelle twisted to look out at the sea again. The cold wind whipped her hair away from her face. Before she could speak again, Ioder came up the road, followed by his driver.

“Oh, you’re already awake. Excellent.”

Estelle rose to her feet. “Yes. Flynn and I have been enjoying the view.”

Flynn asked, “Is everything prepared on the ship?”

Ioder nodded. “You’ll have to share a bunk in a rather small cabin, but I assured the captain it would be fine. We need to head down there now, though, because he wants to set out soon. He’s a private merchant, but these aren’t terribly safe waters for British ships these days.”

“Ok, Flynn.” Estelle took up position behind his chair to push him to the ship. “Let’s go.”

Ioder walked them as far as the ship to introduce them to the captain, and then he made his farewell. Estelle thanked him profusely for all that he’d done for her, and then angled toward the gangplank. She’d been a scared girl when she came to France all those years ago, and though her circumstances couldn’t be more different now, they were just as frightening. She knew she wold be fine, though, because one thing was very different from her arrival: she wasn’t alone. So no matter what life threw at them once they reached England, she knew that they could get through it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fin. Merci beaucoup!
> 
> I had so much fun writing this story so I hope you enjoyed it. I tried to be as historically accurate as possible in this story. Obviously squeezing Estelle into the royal family made some changes, but otherwise I tried to stick to history as much as possible. Here are some notes on accuracy things for anyone who’s as big a history nerd as I am:
> 
> -Estelle’s mother is Princess Marie Zéphyrine. She was Louis XVI’s older sister, but died of a seizure at the age of five. In this story, she survived her childhood seizure, but was always of frail health and died shortly after Estelle was born.  
> -Flynn is studying law. In the 1780s, the only law offered at the University of Paris was canonical law (that is, church law). Flynn isn’t studying church law so this is one of my deliberate breaks from reality to squeeze in a new program at his school.  
> -If you visit the catacombs of Paris today, you can see all the bones in very neat stacks, some of them forming patterns. However, the organization was not done until the early 19th century, so in 1792 they were all just piled in heaps as seen in the story.  
> -Les bijoux indiscrets is a book about a magic ring that makes women’s vaginas talk about all the action they’ve seen. Fun stuff.  
> -The song Flynn sings is called Sott’a lu Ponte. It’s a Corsican lullaby, which is why it isn’t ‘correct’ Italian. I can’t find how old the song is, so I’m just going to hope it had been written already in the 1760s when Flynn was a kid. You can listen to it [here](https://youtu.be/rMeKYwbgUs0).  
> -During the assault on the Tuileries, the king ordered the Swiss Guard to continue defending it even after he and his family had fled to the Hotel de Ville. No one is really sure about why he did this. It isn’t because he had a niece still in the building, though it was a perfect excuse for the purposes of this story. 
> 
> If you know anything about Revolutionary France and want to point out some corrections, feel free!


End file.
